Many Machcins

The next village (or is is villages?) to the east of Jakubowizna is (or are?) called Machcin. Not, however, if you consult any map. There, you will find Nowe Winary. But Nowe Winiary doesn't exist - not according to the Urzędowy wykaz nazw miejscowości (Poland's official list of place names, all 2,504 pages of them!). Instead, you'll find signs for Machcin II. And, beyond Machcin itself, there's a place that the maps show as Praga Machcińska - which again doesn't figure in the UWNM, but is shown on the ground as Machcin I. Funnily enough, neither Machcin I nor Machcin II make it into the UWNM, which is considered the definitive list.

Making the most of the perfect early-September weather, I took a long walk, and then a short motorbike ride, around the Machcins. Below: 'central' Machcin. This wooden house has been preserved - a new house, barn and garage stand behind a yard, full of modern farming machinery. The wooden house has been left, facing the main street, proclaiming that the owners have been here for generations. I expect this will become a trend - keep the original, old wooden house, do it up, keep it as a monument - a family museum, almost, while running a modern, commercially viable farm with comfortable modern house in the back.

Signposts need getting one's head around. As you drive from north-east to south-west, you first pass Machcin I (Praga Machcińska on maps), then Machcin proper, then Machcin II (Nowe Winiary on maps). Hope that's clear. The sign on the right, if you look carefully, looks like it's had the second 'I' painted over in white reflective paint. Note too - Polish villages tend not to have street names; the address is merely village name and number.

Below: crossroads, Machcin I. To the left, the village shop - closed for good. "Use it or lose it" - the villagers lost it. Their nearest small local stores are both 2.8km away - one in Grobice, the other in Rososz, both similar in appearance (no more than a basic box with door and window). 

Below: according to OpenStreetMap, to the east of Jakubowizna lies Nowe Winiary... 

Below: and according to the official map of Gmina Chynów, this is Nowe Winiary... 

...and yet on the ground it's Machcin II and there's no sign of Nowe Winiary on any house-number or road sign. And talking to neighbours, I've never heard 'Nowe Winiary' mentioned in all the time I've lived here.

Below: the border between Jakubowizna and Machcin lies in the middle of the forest up ahead. The year is fast approaching fruition. The apples will soon be ripe, and these farm tracks will again be full of tractors and trailers, the sound of fruit dropping into pails will be heard among the trees.

Below: just slightly further along the track, we can view the IV. Canonical Prospect of Jakubowizna.

Below: the road into Jakubowizna from Machcin - to the right, the track to Adamów Rososki, a village inaccessible via any asphalt road. Adamów Rososki is mentioned in the UWNM.

Below: further along towards Adamów Rososki. A quintessentially Polish rural byway.

Below: house on a działka, Adamów Rososki.

Below: homeward bound, the old familiarity. Sandy Lane meets Stella-Plage.

It has been another beautiful day, for which I am deeply grateful.

Bonus pic: north of Krężel station, on the way to Chynów and Jakubowizna. This is where I am from, as far as is metaphysically possible.

This time three years ago:
The Long Dark Half-Hour of the Consumerist Soul

This time four years ago:
Early-September travel news

This time five years ago:
Fields filling up with houses

This time 12 years ago:
Battle of Britain: Poland's contribution

This time 13 years ago:
Sewer under ul. Karczunkowska

Is the search for purpose futile? Lent 2022: Day 34

Why do we get up in the morning? What drives us on? It's more than just simple survival. It's more than going to work to get money to pay for shelter, clothing and food, an existence leavened by entertainment.

There must be more to life than that - there must be a goal, a purpose, rather than mere existence, getting to the end of the day unscathed.

"Some guys they just give up living/And start dying little by little, piece by piece," sang Bruce Springsteen. The hero of his song, Racing in the Streets, answered the existential call for purpose by competitive petrochemically fuelled thrill. One can see pleasure as purpose, although hedonism as the "egoistic pursuit of short-term gratification by indulging in sensory pleasures without regard for the consequences" doesn't do it for me.

The Japanese doctor Shigeaki Hinohara who died in 2017 at the age of 105, said that the key to longevity was having an underlying sense of purpose, to know why you get up each morning. [He also said that one common factor among centenarians, regardless of gender, nationality or race, was that none of them is overweight.] An active, questing mind, ever curious, observing the world, asking the right questions, will also be happier - even knowing that ultimate answers lay out of reach. It is, I would argue, curiosity that keeps people going into old age, giving them energy and indeed happiness.

The unfolding Universe goes hand in hand with our own personal growth; this is why I believe that one lifetime is not enough and that consciousness grows and builds as a long-term process. My consciousness is curious - what will happen next? I feel that what we experience subjectively in this lifetime passes on to build within a future entity. But just how this happens I know not; seeking greater insight into the process is purpose for me, a mystery to work through.

Keeping fit and a healthy diet is a secondary purpose linked to longevity, which itself is linked to absorbing as much understanding, wisdom and insight as possible in this lifetime, in the expectation that this will be of value in future lives! How? How does one's spiritual growth relate to the unfolding Universe? Finding out is part of the purpose that keeps me going!

[I write this, as is the case with all blog posts this Lent, in the knowledge that across the border, inhuman barbarism is taking place, atrocities that have no place in Europe in the 21st century; for a great many Ukrainians purpose means keeping loved ones alive and driving the evil invaders out of their country. May the Good Lord help them in that endeavour!

This time two years ago:
Don't Let Misfortune Catch You Unaware!

This time six years ago
HOT! (24C)

This time seven years ago:
Snowy Easter Sunday

This time nine years ago:
Look upon my lack of works and despair

This time 11 years ago:
More old-school retailing
(the old Sezam)

This time 12 years ago:
Easter Sunday - Lent's over

This time 13 years ago:
Węzeł Lotnisko - site cleared, ready to start construction

This time 14 years ago:
Classic Polish cars - the Polski Fiat 125P

This time 15 years ago:
Jeziorki in Google Earth

September

Summer's over - meteorological summer, at least, ended yesterday. Yet astronomical summer continues through unto 21:21 (Warsaw time) on 22 September, when the sun will cross the equator, heading south, marking the beginning of astronomical autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. And so it is that the date marking the transition from the summer to the autumn of one's life also varies. Maintaining a cheerful disposition, as I noted the other day, is useful. 

As is a helping of Earth, Wind & Fire, exuberantly funking their way through September.

Walking around Jakubowizna at this time of year brings delight after delight. Below, a rowan bush, jarzębina (Sorbus aucuparia). The fruit is attractive, but bitter in taste - and purgative. The key ingredient in jarzębiak.

Below: out of the orchards, into the wood. Apple picking has started; you can hear it - voices, portable radios, the sound of apples being placed in plastic buckets - but rarely can you see it behind the serried rows of trees.

In the forest, tree-felling is still in progress; logs have been gathered up and are awaiting transport.

Beyond the forest, more apples. I have one rule here - I'll never take apples off the tree. That's theft - depriving the farmer of income. I will, however, pick fallen apples off the ground. I cut the bruised parts away, and peel the skin, which will have absorbed high doses of pesticide. One apple a day is more than enough to provide an 80g-portion of the fruit.

Below: an oak apple gall growing on an oak leaf. Inside, the larva of a gall wasp.

Below: on the road to Machcin II. Up to the end, turn right, and through the main part of Jakubowizna, where the new pavement is being laid on one side of the road, the drainage ditch being cleaned and deepened on the other.

Water-tank sunset's fine, Chynów. Ulica Działkowa runs through puddles into town, apple orchards on both sides.

Back on the działka I experience elation at the wonder of it all. I catch sight, well over the horizon by now, Jupiter - at first I thought it was an airliner approaching from the south-east, but a snap with the 70-300mm lens zoomed right out shows clearly the planet's four Galilean moons.

And that brings us back, dear reader, to Earth, Wind & Fire's horns rousing Jupiter: those horns are something - punching out 25 notes in 4.1 seconds with total, synchronised precision to give the effect of hammers stabbing - brilliant.

Hope you enjoyed the music! 

This time two years ago:
Fiftieth anniversary of me starting grammar school

This time three years ago:
Two films about the legendary Polish 303 Sqn

This time five years ago:
Kępno's intriguing station

This time seven years ago:
Thoughts occasioned by the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2

This time eight years ago:
A green light for consumer spending

This time ten years ago:
Procrastination - is it the same as laziness?

This time 12 years ago:
Remembering the outbreak of WW2

Religion and Happiness: Lent 2018 summary

Day 46: Easter Saturday

My annual period of self-denial and spiritual focus is coming to an end; this is the 27th year in a row - the first was in 1992. Then I gave up nothing more than giving up alcohol, confectionery, fast food and salt snacks between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Over the years, I've forsworn more items (meat in particular), but more importantly, I have begun treating Lent as a time for spiritual growth rather than just giving up things.

After the excesses of Christmas - the alcohol-fuelled merrimaking and excessive food consumption that sees you though the dark, cold and miserable time of year in  our hemisphere, I look forward to the beginning of Lent more and more with each passing year; it's both a welcome detox for the body and a chance to revisit those most important aspects of what it is to be human, to be conscious, to be alive, to think, to reason, to feel.

As those of you who've followed by Lenten quests over the years, a key issue for me is to seek a clearer path towards the truth. In general terms, I believe it lies neither in the received truths of organised religions nor in the reductionist materialism of traditional science. Rather, I intuit that we humans do have a spiritual nature that is metaphysical and indeed supernatural; that consciousness evolves, that the universe has a purpose, and that God exists - but we have yet to come anywhere close to an understanding of what God is or means. All we can do is seek - our seeking should be based on insights, intuition and reason, on reading widely from many sources, looking for highest common factors, looking for commonalities between cutting-edge science and human tradition - and intuition.

Some of us have a need for a spiritual search, a search for meaning - others don't. Those that don't may feel the need to dismiss my personal search as misguided. But the search is moving me in the right direction, and this Lent I have found much inspiration in Stuart A. Kauffman's Humanity in a Creative Universe. While taking great pains not to write off classical Newtonian science and all the advances it has brought us over the past three centuries, Kauffman opens doors to new ways of looking at our universe that do not dismiss an intuitive approach.

Doubts in my mind have often been engendered by that cold scientific approach. It is born of the faith that consciousness resides in the brain and that death means a final snuffing out, an extinction of self; nothingness. Classical science based on certainties plotted by quadratic equations would posit that thinking otherwise is nothing but self-delusion. But Kauffman - and other serious scientists too - are pointing to a new view of reality, based on the uncertainties at the heart of quantum mechanics, and on the rejection that we're not far from uncovering a final grand theory of everything. The evolving universe is too complex for that, says Kauffman, who posits that the laws of nature themselves may be evolving. I found myself several times during the course of reading this book having insights that not only brought on new horizons - they actually made me feel happier. [I felt a 'Good News' moment of true joy when I read that a serious theoretical physicist arguing that dark energy and dark matter might indeed be consciousness, or that consciousness might be a property of matter along with energy and mass. I was overjoyed to read these ideas.]

Yes - happiness. Being optimistic and positive is a far better way to approach life than being pessimistic and negative. I have met people, ostensibly successful, wealthy and driven, whose worldview is dreadfully negative, whose negativism and misanthropy acts as a black hole sucking in all the hope of people around them. We should avoid contact with such people.

Happiness brings about greater mental health, health and happiness are linked; if you feel there is sense to life, that life is about moving forward on that great universal continuum from Zero to One, then your life has more meaning, you are more likely to fulfil your human potential.

This time last year:
Health and fitness in a Quarter of Abstinence

This time five years ago:

Easter Sunday in the snow

This time seven years ago:
Cycling to work - the new season begins

This time eight years ago:  
Five weeks into Lent

Why the Happy are Healthy

I wrote a while back about the link between health and happiness being related to the link between happiness and health; a virtuous spiral. Now a pair of American scientists seem to have moved one crucial step forward in finding a causal link between the two. This week's Economist carries a Most significant article about thinking yourself better. "...[R]espectable research has demonstrated that those who frequently experience positive emotions live longer and healthier lives. They have fewer heart attacks, for example, and fewer colds too."

The link discovered by Dr Barbara Fredrickson and Dr Bethany Kok at the University of North Carolina (and this warrants more research) is to do with the vagal tone index.

Apparently, there are subtle differences between the pulse rate when breathing in (faster) and breathing out (slower). If the heart beats at exactly the same rate when you're inhaling as when you're exhaling, your vagal tone index is One. Obviously, to measure this you need sophisticated, ultra-sensitive instruments to measure your heartbeat down to small fractions per second. Then, you need to link this data to information about how happy (or unhappy) you are - what emotions, positive or negative - you have experienced. The result? "[P]eople with high [vagal tone] tone are better than those with low at stopping bad feelings getting overblown. They also show more positive emotions in general. This may provide the missing link between emotional well-being and physical health."

OK - so if you let your bad feelings get control of you - does that condemn you to ill health? The article mentions meditation as an effective therapy, but it tends to improve the vagal tone index of those who already have a good vagal tone index. Meditation is of little benefit to those with low vagal tone index.

Are there other factors at work here? I just wrote about the link between higher educational attainment and longevity. Maybe IQ has something to do with this? More intelligent people can apply logical thought to their lifestyle, diet and habits, and are better able to control emotions (for example, through cognitive behavioural therapy). But then happy, intelligent people also succumb to deadly ailments. But less often.

And the biggest known unknown in all this is genes - until we have cheap gene mapping ($100 or less) that can unravel our DNA and tell us with total precision which variants of which genes we possess, we'll still be significantly in the dark. But will we want this knowledge? Will we want to know if there's some dark disease that will slay us in the near future? One day, of course, science will arm our doctors with a gene therapy tool-kit that will let us mend any faulty gene. This, coupled with greater understanding of how our brains work, may well lead to a future in which a child born today could (with luck and intelligence) live to the age of 300, picking up on healthcare developments along the way that we cannot even imagine today.

Along the way to this uplifting vision of the future is an intermediary stage, in which we can unravel and understand the gene map, but don't yet have the tools to fix all known genetically transmitted diseases. Here, the spectre of a genetic underclass looms; people whose DNA tests reveal variants of genes that portend life-threatening conditions that no insurer would wish to underwrite. At present, it's hit or miss. Signing up for (private) healthcare insurance, you answer questions about disease in your family history. Ethical questions will raise big issues for society and its legislators. We are on the verge of an immense healthcare revolution.

In the meanwhile, as we wait for advances, we are one step forward at least - in knowing that thinking positively about life does indeed lead to better health.

This time last year:
The black SUV, the black SUV... (with the darkened rear windows)

This time two years ago:
Atonement

This time five years ago:
Where I'm from, and why

New Year stocktaking

For my parents' Christmas present, I made them a compilation of the songs I remember them singing around the house when I was a small boy. This took several months of delving into the furthest recesses of my memory, plenty of research, then downloading the digital song files and conversion to .wav format and finally burning onto CD.

Among the songs my mother would sing me was I Got The Sun In The Morning And The Moon At Night from the Broadway musical, Annie Get Your Gun.

Taking stock of what I have and what I haven't/What do I find?
The things I've got will keep me satisfied
Checking up on what I have and what I haven't/What do I find?
A healthy balance on the credit side.

New Year is a good time to express my thanks for my lot in life, for health, for happiness, family, friends, interesting work - and being in the right place at the right time.

Easter will be late this year - not until 24 April (the latest it can be is 25 April). Which means Lent starts late too (9 March). At this time of year, I start slowly adjusting to the coming time of fast. This year will be my 20th Lenten fast in a row. The hardest thing for me to give up is caffeine; once my current stock of Lavazza is used up, I will swap it as my breakfast beverage for instant coffee which will get progressively weaker until it goes altogether. Giving up caffeine suddenly leads to massive headaches.

This morning I weighed in at 71.5 kg (11 st 3lbs), and girth around the fattest part of my tum measured 97.5cm (38.4 inches). [Over 102cm /40 inches increases danger of heart disease.] My Body Mass Index* is currently 22.6, near the middle of the 'normal' range. A return to sit-ups (20 a day) and press-ups (ten a day) has begun with the New Year and will increase regularly, to be continued through to the end of Lent.

Looking back just two years, I see that I have slimmed down by 2.5cm (just under an inch) around the middle and I'm 3.5 kg (8 lb) lighter today than I was then, BMI is lower by a healthy 1.1. also in post-Christmas, pre-Lent condition. Regular cycling is certainly one contributing factor; I'm also sure that annual fasting for 46 days couldn't hurt.

[* To work out BMI, you need to know that I'm 5ft 10ins, or 1.78m tall.]

This time last year:
A walk in the wild winter woods

This time two years ago:
Now that's what I call winter vol. 12

This time three years ago:
When the day starts getting longer

Happy ever after

The Christmas edition of the Economist is always one to cherish. As well as the usual politics, business, finance, science and arts coverage, there are numerous articles of more general interest that appeal to the inquiring mind. A good read, and one that lasts for longer than just the Christmas and New Year's break.

This year's cover story is the incredibly optimistic news that as we age, we get happier. It seems, then, that the Polish saying Starość nie radość ('Old age isn't joy') is somewhat overstated.

This is not, in itself, new news. The BBC covered this in its series on happiness (The Happiness Formula) back in 2006. On the basis of data collected from around the UK, researchers showed that humans reach a low-point with regards their happiness somewhere in their mid-40s, and after that, their happiness levels start to rise.

What makes the Economist's article convincing is the global sample. It is based on research examining happiness in 72 countries around the world. Globally, it seems, the pattern is similar to that which the 2006 UK data shows. We are happy when young, then our happiness declines. The age at which it hits a low point varies from country to country, with Switzerland (35) and Ukraine (62) being the outliers. But the global average is 46; on reaching this age, life gets happier and happier. Hence the Economist's cover caption, Life begins at 46.

Old age, since the Swinging '60s and the dawn of the Permissive Society, has been seen with dread by the young and middle-aged. Now, it seems, we have far less to fear than we had imagined.

My mother (83 and in good physical and fine mental condition) often tells me that "the best is yet to come" on the basis of her own life experience. Thank you! I look forward to it - armed with statistical evidence from around the world that this indeed is the case.

Happiness, Polish-style

A recent post was picked up by fellow-blogger Paulina at Perfect Polish. She points out that the words 'happy' and 'lucky' are both translated into Polish as szczęśliwy. (Just looking at that word must make English speakers tongues go all weird.) So time for a discourse on this subject. Consider szczęśliwie, nic złego się nie stało ('luckily nothing bad happened') and jestem szczęśliwy ('I am happy'). In the first case, the cause of the good fortune is external. In the second, it is an internal state of mind, an emotion. So why, given the unrelated nature of the two concepts - do they find themselves in Polish occupying one word? Latin, French, Spanish, Italian... 

Two words. German, like Polish has - one word for both (glücklich). As does Dutch (gelukkig). 'Glad?' The Swedish and Norwegian word for 'happy'. The Russian (udachlivy for lucky, compare to udać in Polish - to work out, i.e. a lucky person is one for whom things have worked out, as opposed to a nieudacznik, someone upon whom the fates have not smiled kindly.) Schastlivy, Russian for happy, is basically the same word as the Polish szczęśliwy. Given my theory of linguistic blanks pointing us towards cultural difference, is there something about the Polish and Nordic attitudes to luck and happiness that make them different to the peoples all around them? Any comments, dear readers? Luck, good fortune, is something that troubles philosophers deeply. 

The chances of us being alive, for example. Multiply the chances of your parents meeting, by the chances of their parents meeting, and so on through evolution to the earliest forms of primitive life. Each and every stage, each and every mating (and we are talking hundreds of billions) had to be a success for you to have been born. And on a planet that's just the right distance from a star that's just the right brightness and warmth. In a universe that's just the right age to host planetary development. So then, here we are. You, me, them, everybody. Consciously aware of what's around us. The products of a szczęśliwy traf ('lucky strike') so infinitesimally improbable as to make the 1 in 14,000,000 odds against winning the lottery as likely as flipping heads or tails. There's the luck bit. The happiness bit should be a concomitant. We are - we should rejoice in being! Our internal state of mind should be predicated from the outset by the realisation of how the purest of chance brought us to be. Yet too often, it's not; we lose sight of the wonder of our consciousness, and in doing so, we become unhappy. 

 The Mike Leigh film, Happy-go-Lucky, was released in Poland under the title of Happy-go-Lucky, czyli co nas uszczęśliwia, which can mean both '...what makes us happy', or 'what causes us to be lucky'.

In search of happiness

Deep, eh, readers? A train of though kicked off a few days ago by a conversation I had with my wife in which we both agreed that I am generally happier in my life than she is in hers.

Once again - nature or nurture? Are some of us born to be happy in life, while others, living in similar circumstances wallow in woe?

A run of small moments at which one can say - "Yes - I am content" is a better recipe for happiness than seeking it in expensive pleasures (exotic holidays, flash cars, more and more consumer durables). I remember a friend of my late father-in-law telling us how much more content he was in life when, as a child in pre-war Poland, all that was needed to achieve happiness was a slice of bread with smalec (lard) and a glass of cool, clean water to wash it back with.

What's made me happy over the past few days? A phone call from my mother in which she told me about a new biography of Adam Smith that she wants to buy. It's great that at the age of 82, she's still intellectually curious about what drives our world. Blasting through the Las Kabacki forest on my bike on Thursday night. Looking out of the train window on my way to work on Wednesday and seeing how much progress has been made on the S79. Reading over lunch at the Vietnamese bar round the corner from my office about the Polish victory over the Bolsheviks 90 years ago (more about this soon). Listening to Earth Wind and Fire (what an excellent band they were!). Discovering that Tesco sells excellent Chilean and Australian dry red wines for less than ten zlotys. Cooking breakfast for Moni this morning (scrambled eggs with ham). These things all brought about a state of mind that I could consciously associate with 'happiness'.

This story from today's Daily Telegraph (stumbled upon as so often by chance), is extremely interesting. Apparently, vivid dreamers have better memories than those who wake up in remembering nothing that they've dreamed. There's a lot more beneath the surface of this one - vivid dreamers have other characteristics (higher IQs, greater imagination) than those who dismiss them as 'dreamers'. I would go further; vivid dreamers are happier individuals than those who get out of bed in the morning thinking nothing's happened in their minds over night.

So it is a nature thing? A happiness gene? Well, I think so.

A controversial linkage - but one which I believe neuroscientists will be pursuing over the next decades.

Travel broadens the spirit

With the onset of summer come thoughts of holidays and travel plans. Time to share some thoughts on the subject. Why do I wish to travel? Primarily, to seek spirit of place - genius locii, atmosphere, platzgeist, ambience, klimat. Seeking happiness-through-being-there. Happiness - that micro-moment when everything is right, that pleasant flavour of the mind. When I'm in that right place, those micro-moments connect up to a larger, more general sense of well-being.

This is what being on holiday should be about; improving the flavour of the mind, swelling the consciousness with beatitude. Rest, of course, yes, what's good for the body is good for the soul. But the idea of an idle fortnight in a hotel by a beach resort fills me with indifference.

Spirits of place are fickle. Walk or cycle (you'll not catch it with the same intensity sitting in a car) a few hundred metres (or less) one way or the other - and you've lost it. My sense of it is as fine-tuned as a metal detector. Moving, searching. *Paff!* There it is. Catch it, consign it to your soul*, and move on, slowly, lest you miss another such moment.

I want to seek spiritual communion with the landscape - be it rural, urban or suburban. I seek to travel to find places I don't know and yet do know - places that are replete with an instant sense of atavistic familiarity from dreams and flashbacks.

I intend to visit Scandinavia and would wish to return to the USA - backroad, small town USA; coast to coast, on to the Pacific. Canada too. I must say I have no real interest in taking myself to Africa or Asia or Australasia. Europe I'd want to see more of - in all directions. Spain, yes. But right now, time and money is limited, Poland needs to be discovered. As I recently wrote, the bicycle is the optimal way to catch the spirit of place, three times faster than walking yet three times slower than driving, not isolated from the landscape by laminated glass. I'll be back in Dobra with Eddie before too long, we both feel very comfortable there. But the Big Journeys beckon. It will be a few years, but they will happen.

* Ah yes - photography. For a pictorial record capturing spirit of place to be worthwhile, on looking at the photo, it must capture the emotional effect of being there - it must engender what I saw and felt at the time. And if others can share that feeling - then perfect.

A long night in church

Moni had her confirmation last night at the Dominican abbey in Slużew. And quite some ceremony it was too, starting at eight in the evening and finishing well after 1 am.

She had been attending confirmation classes for the best part of two years; the lead up to the ceremony is not taken lightly (skip too many classes and you're name's off the list). Confirmation takes place on the eve of Pentecost and the sacrament is administered by a bishop.

Although the Dominican Abbey is a modern building, bereft of the built-up trappings of centuries - holy paintings, miraculous statues, etc, the Dominicans still know how to Put On A Show. To quote John Betjeman: "Church and Stage have always been closely connected". The music is staggeringly good at putting the congregation into a deeply spiritual mood (helped by first-rate accoustics), the ritual, steeped in symbolism, the incense, the vestments are traditional and As They Should Be, yet never have I heard a dodgy message from the pulpit (re: politics, the EU, Jews, masons, cyclists); sermons stick to Christ's Love. The congregation itself it is in good measure young (many students) and intellectuals. The first non-communist prime minister of modern Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, worships here.

The sermon from Bishop Pikus, finished with the words "True human happiness is impossible without Belief"; words to ponder upon, an idea worth lengthy contemplation.

The picture above was taken with my Nikon D80 (the battery memory issue seems to have mysteriously cleared up!). I used my 105mm f1.8 Nikkor wide open (640 ISO at 1/40 sec). Being able to use my old Nikkor lenses is one reason why I chose to go digital with Nikon rather than Canon. Click to enlarge and see the detail.

If you are wondering why the shops are shut* today, it's because it's Pentecost and the nation is commemorating the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (Zielone Świątki in Poland, Whitsun in England).

* Last year, a radio journalist called a prominent PiS politician and mischievously asked him whether he was going shopping that day. Hearing the answer 'yes', the journalist told the politician that he couldn't. "And why's that?" asked the politician. "Because you lot voted to close all shops today", replied the journalist. Collapse of stout party.

Balancing on the Edge of Chaos

We live our lives precariously balanced on the Edge of Chaos. Each day that passes without a catastrophic event that can plunge any of us into turmoil should be given thanks for. Accidents - fatal or disabling - disease, premature bereavement, job loss, break-ups of relationships, crimes against one's person or property, wars and pandemics, financial or rare natural disasters (supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes that can trigger mass extinctions) - even relatively small things (losing your wallet and all those documents and cards) - such events strike out of the blue.

But unannounced? I'm ever on the look-out for coincidences. The universe is held together by a web of coincidence, patterns to look for, the meaning is there. For example, seeing one person with an eye-patch is rare. Seeing a second one in a day carries meaning. Ignore this, and while you're sitting in Accident & Emergency, waiting for a doctor to attend your eye poked with a branch while out cycling, you'll be recalling those two eye-patched people you saw the previous day. Seeing two fire engines rushing to two separate fires should cause the observer to consider the possibility of fire occurring closer to home. That, dear reader, is how coincidence works for me.

Bad things often happen because I've only half-thought about them. The schadenfreude when something bad happens to someone else, and I fail to consciously discount the possibility of it happening to me (a virus strikes a colleague’s computer – their fault for being IT illiterate, not taking precautions, etc, then blow me if a data-destroying disaster doesn’t befall my computer!)

The avoidance of disasters happening can, I believe, be achieved simply by thinking about the possibility of their occurrence. I've never wanted to say this, fearing that by doing so, the system will fail me; after many years, I feel sufficiently grateful for my life to share this.

I give thanks for my health twice a day, while brushing my teeth. A form of prayer, a communication with God, an expression of gratitude to one's maker, while praying for the health of my loved ones. The placebo effect taken to its logical conclusion; belief in the power of belief harnessed to enhance health.

Taking one's good fortune for granted is a sure way of losing it. Complacency is very dangerous in nature [curiously, there's no word in Polish for 'complacent'. Zadowolony z siebie (being self-satisfied) misses by a long shot]. Inferring that fortune will continue being to good because it has been up to now, is to have been lulled into a false sense of security; the Boethian Wheel of Fortune rotates randomly.

Being consciously aware of what one has to be thankful for gives one a better chance of keeping it. I like the rabbinical injunction to be [a]ware of days when you are happy to know that dark days will come; and in the darkest of days to know that happiness is bound to return.

On transcendence

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

(John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn, 1819).

Great art, as Roger Scruton says in his book Beauty, separates the human mind from everyday matters, putting it in touch with with the metaphysical, the eternal, the absolute. That is Keats’ truth/beauty-beauty/truth equation in practice – to be found in those moments, lost in wonder, when as a result of direct contact with Great Art, one’s consciousness is lifted to a higher plane. This gives rise to new insights; intimations of a new understanding of existence itself.

Now, is that sublime moment a touching of eternity – or nothing more than a flow of chemicals and electrical discharges through the brain? Scientists would argue that all that’s happening is that dopamine, serotonin or oxytocyn (the 'cuddle' hormone) flows have been triggered, causing a sensation of pleasure and heightened awareness. Religious people would describe such moments as divine inspiration; God in direct contact with Man.

I’d argue that it is both at the same time. I’d argue that this division, which has existed since the time of the Enlightenment, between Science and Spirituality, is a false one. Today, quantum physics and neuroscience are both nudging in the direction of supernature.

Chicken and/or egg? Neither and/or both.

Am I healthy because I’m happy? Or am I happy because I am healthy?

Let’s take the question a stage further: Is my positive approach to life a result of the fact that I’m happy and healthy – or does the fact that I’m happy and healthy stem from my positive approach to life?

Those who like to think of themselves as scientists, rationalists, reductionists, would stick to the first answer. Yet the bulk of mankind would instinctively say “well, there’s something to be said for the second”.

Indeed, but is there a deeper, scientifically determinable mechanism at work? Am I really able to think myself into a state of healthiness and happiness? Research into the placebo effect (and its evil twin, the nocebo effect) suggests that this may indeed be the case.

Again, let’s take the question a stage further. Belief in the power of belief. If you don’t believe that a positive outlook can improve your health or slow down disease – then the likelihood is it won’t. If you do believe in belief, then it will.

Moments of sublime transcendence, when the mind ceases to be bound by the constraints of body, of time or of place, intimate the possibility of that one’s awareness can exist independent of muscle, bone and brain.

Which leads me to the most important question of all regarding human consciousness: The most important question – a question so profound that people back off from dwelling on it in case they go mad – is that of the mortality of our consciousness.

Does our mind die with our body? When our heart ceases to beat and when blood ceases to oxygenate the brain – is that the end of our awareness?

The answer is thought to be binary; either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Or is could it be both yes and no? Could it be, as with Schroedinger’s Cat, that both states are true at the same time, until observed by a conscious observer? So if you believe it to be the case, your consciousness lives on, but if you are convinced that you are but brain, muscle and bone and nothing else – then that, for you, indeed is it?

This existential uncertainty has ever been the prime mover of religions. Certainty of afterlife; insurance – assurance. Be good, and when you die, your soul (whatever that is, but to me it is clearly your consciousness) lives on ‘in heaven’.

So another set of binary choices:

Your consciousness can live on after physical death.

or

Your consciousness expires along with your body at physical death

I shall explore this thread in following posts.