Okay, so we draw in two dimensions, live in three, and think in four (I guess seeing as most of our thought is based around time…). What would a fifth dimension look like? And a sixth? Or a tenth? Could other dimensions exist outside our own lived experiences?

This may help you imagine how such a strange idea could exist:

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286.

It’s a pretty queer place.

Picture:

The cover of a book written by a friend I made through this blog. James M. Harvey wrote “Singularia: Being At An Edge In Time – A Meditation and Thought Experiment While Crossing the Galactic Core” published by Alchemica Productions in Mullumbimby, NSW – a book based on the idea of the “Singularia” - defined as ‘A noun for which there is no plural form, but which is not grammatically uncountable. Example: information, humanity, consciousness.’ (p. vi.)

“Humanity” is one, and yet it is many. We are part of a universe, yet we contain a universe inside ourselves. Ten dimensions may exist, many universes within universes may exist, but it is all part of the same thing: it’s all a singularia.

This book reminded me that we are all together on this journey for truth and understanding of our place in the universe. Thank you James for contacting me and sharing your story. Check it out: http://www.singularia.com.au/

”Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist… The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science?” that you could meet, and ask questions.” [1] he [Hawkings] said. ”I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God

This is a quote from Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, quoted by Laura Roberts in today’s Sydney Morning Herald in an article entitled “God did not create universe: Hawking.”

While some of the commentary on this newsarticle focused on the lack of newsworthiness of the story (for example, “Shock, horror, leading scientist doesn’t believe in God…really, this non-story is a glib plug for a new book, well done to the publicisit who somehow got this treated as news.”) I still enjoyed the article. And it got me thinking…

I do align God with the laws of science, BUT I’m not so sure that the story begins or ends there…

I think it’s important to recognise the limitations of our knowledge, for example, that we can never know what lies outside the boundaries of our universe. There could be an entire universe of universes we are unaware of. Not to mention the universes within our universe that our senses may not have evolved to sense. Just because we can not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’m thinking of the sounds that bats hear, the electrofields that the platypus beak senses, etc etc. We simply cannot know the things we do not yet have a means to sense.

So, while I know it may well be ridiculously arrogent to think I can criticise someone as smart as Hawkings, I do question his statement “you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions“.

When I think about the aligning of “God” with the laws of the universe and the idea of a “personal God” – I’m not so sure that the two concepts are incompatible.

In my mind, this aparent contradiction seems completely dependant on your language. It depends on your framing. It depends on your understanding of the universe, and of the connection between the macrocosms and microcosms that lay within it.

You can describe the awe-inspiring force of creative expansion of our universe using mathematical formula, chemistry, and universal laws; or, you can take the whole intricate system and personify it as “God”. And these two ways of describing the same thing, in my mind, are not mutually exclusive conceptions.

Just because you choose to personify the universe as “God”, and speak to it and (possibly) hear answers through your intuition and by reading the omens surrounding you… doesn’t mean that you can’t equate this peronified force “God” to the laws of the universe.

You may wonder:  How can anyone feel  comforted by a force that they are pretending to be a person? Why would anyone bother to personify it? And talk to it? How deluded! What a waste of time! …. Well I disagree.

Firstly, I don’t think anyone thinks God is actually a person. Even the most radical religious followers don’ think that – do they? I’m pretty sure that while groups may claim ownership of God, and may ascribe their own versions of historical or non-historical events to this God, I don’t believe any actually claim that God is a person. Religious believers (as far as I’m aware) would agree that the question of exactly WHAT is God, is beyond the limits of our knowledge; just as scientists (as far as I’m aware) would admit there are elements of the universe that they do not and may never come to know or understand.

Secondly, I do actually see some benefits of personifying it and talking to it. Largely due the connection that seems to appear between microcosm and macrocosm, there is a need for us to communicate with the whole that we are a part of.

Let me use an analogy:

When I twisted my ankle earlier this year, and ignored the injury for a week of waterskiing and partying, my brain decided to stop communicating with the spacial sensors located in the ligaments of my ankle. A few weeks later I twisted it again. And then again. And then again. It took a lot of time and money on physiotherapy to help reconnect my brain with my ankle, and even now every now and the communication channels are rusty and I almost go over on it.

So let’s apply this to our place within our universe, well to my limited understanding of my place within our universe…

From what I have learned in various books and lectures, every atom that exists as a vibration - electrons and protons moving at different speeds. Einstein showed us that matter IS energy (times the speed of light, squared)… what does this mean?

The line where our body appears to end and that which we sit on or touch seems to begin, is a boundary we perceive because our senses have evolved for us to see the world in this way. It’s like everything that exists is all part of the same piece of fabric, and the appearance of separateness is like a design weaved within it.

Our thoughts are not separate from this permeating fabric. From what I understand (yes it is probably due to books about The Law of Attraction and thought experiments), when we think the vibrations of our thoughts travel into the universe, and like an ankle talking to a brain, those thoughts play a role in the manifestation of the reality we experience. It seems that if you are “on the same wavelength” as someone else, so to say, if you are tuned in correctly you can pick up those vibrations and hear each other’s thoughts. Or maybe “hear” is not the right word. But you can sense them through an intuitive sense inside you – not in a sound, but in the mind.

Similarly if you “pray” to a God, or to The Universe, these thoughts connect to something that maybe similar to the “brain” of the macrocosm we are inside and generally acting within the laws of science, these thoughts attract your requests, your “prayers” are answered.

Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone, but it in an uncanny way it pretty much always works for me. Whether it’s putting in a request for a sunny winter’s day, or a rockstar carpark, and for much larger requests too. Ask and receive. Knock and the door will be opened.

Does this provide me comfort? Sure it does. It is rather like the analogy Christians give of a father’s loving embrace. When you don’t see yourself as separate from the universe, if there is no “other”, then you don’t fear it.

Does it matter whether or not you personify the macrocosm as “God”? I don’t think so really.

It helps me, but maybe that’s because I was conditioned this way since birth. Maybe it strengthens one’s relationship to the macrocosm, helps you sense vibrations at a different frequency, streamlining the communication channels amd making them more personal, or maybe it doesn’t, I’m not really sure.

I guess it’s not so different to an ankle ankleifying the brain. The ankle could say “Dear Mr Ankle that lives up top, there is a stone to the left that I need you to respond to”… or the ankle could try to communicate more abstractly with the Laws of the Body that it has experienced in the past. Maybe I’m taking my analogy too far…

Anyway, it seems that whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you personify “god” or sciencify “the universe”, in my mind we are all referring to an ecosystem of macrocosms within macrocosms and microcosms within microcosms… we are all part of the repeating patterns that (including ourselves) are all expressions of some an energy that is both nothing and everything at the same time; we are all part of something that we will never fully be able to describe or understand.

Maybe anklifying the brain if you are ankle, or personifying the universe if you are person, is a useful tool for communicating with the whole… or maybe it’s not. What do you think???

- Is the idea of a divine force compatible with spontaneous creation?

- Might “God” refer to a personification of what scientific laws attempt to describe?

- Is it possible (and useful) to communicate with this “personal God”?

Is the question on the Sydney Morning Herald poll too limited? Should there be an option that reads:

“None of the above – spontaneous creation IS a divine force itself, whether or not that divine force extends beyond it.”

That’s the one I’d vote for.

References:

Laura Roberts, Sydney Morning Herald (3 Sept 2010) quoting from Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design – an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times.

Picture:

A Sydney Morning Herald poll – to vote go to this site:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/god-did-not-create-universe-hawking-20100903-14rva.html#comments

Why did the Global Financial Crisis actually happen? The best explanation I have come across was when about this time last year Canadian professor Jim Stanford came to speak at my uni – he tries to demystify the economy by explaining the concepts and jargon in a simple, easily understandable way.

What is the economy? It is WORK. ‘The total sum of work we do to meet our needs and wants.’ The economy is about meeting human needs.

Jim separates the economy into:

1. the “real economy” - that is, jobs that create physical value

2. the “paper economy” -that is, jobs that speculate on the real economy, and more or less trade paper.

In our present system, the paper traders are getting richer as the physical traders get poorer. For every $1 of real economy, $100 of paper economy is traded. That means $100 is circulated by people speculating on that $1, and essentially getting paid to do nothing of real value – just buying and selling financial assets.

It makes sense when you think about it. What jobs pay the most in our society? Stock traders. Finance. Bankers. Business. That’s why Dads like mine want me to study Business and work my way up the ladder of a big corporation – it equals money and security. But what else does it mean? What value am I adding to society if I do this?

Where do our foods, clothes, housing materials come from? Who gets paid the least down the chain of production? The people picking the raw ingredients that make these things, and the people that put the goods together. People getting paid almost nothing (if not completely nothing) for their work.

When you get a big profit from trading on the stock market – where is that money coming from? I’m not pointing fingers at those who trade or own shares, saying, “ooooo you’re such a bad person.” I have shares too. Actually any of us who have bank accounts or superannuation funds, have shares on the stock market. Our shares contribute to the problem but I am part of the 85% of the population of developed capitalist countries who is paid for my employment, more or less economic slaves to the system as I need to earn money to pay my rent, my credit card bill, and  pay for my next holiday. It is logical that when we invest in shares, or play with shares on the stock market, we hope that we will gain the greatest possible profit from our investment of time and/or money. These are the rules of the game we presently play.

These rules also define the responsibilities of CEOs to make the most profit they can, without regard for people and our planet, and pay these big boys very big bucks to do so. The main problem with this system lies with the 2% of the population of developed capitalist countries who own large majorities of the paper wealth in the world, with banks at the top given their license to print money and lend it out in debt. (Side noting that the other 13% work as farmers or in their own small businesses).

Jim says it isn’t fair that the workers suffer every time the system collapses as we didn’t cause the problem. It was the rules of the system that caused it, and unless we change the rules, it will continue to happen again and again. Jim says we need to ‘hold the banking system accountable to meeting society’s need for steady credit, or step in and do it ourselves’ (we can print money too).

Solutions include:

1. Demystify economics - explain where the crisis came from and understand why something needs to change.

2. Redeem the value and legitimacy of real work and production – based on a new model of growth / stability.

3. Don’t let the bank make us pay for their mistakes:

- re-regulate finance

- socialise credit creation (ie learn to do it ourselves through public banks and credit unions)

- look for comprehensible credible alternatives that also address global problems of poverty and pollution

- get rid of useless industries

- stop making shit

Jim explains it far better than these rough notes I took from his lecture.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are more of his lectures on youtube – well worth a watch. Or his book:

Also, although this wasn’t from my notes from Jim’s lecture, I think surely we need to do something about the tax havens. Did you know that half of all world trade currently passes through tax havens? Apparently they ‘allow rich people and corporations to stash trillions in assets that could provide governments with at least $250 billion a year in tax revenues.’[1]

Look, I don’t like paying tax, I believe I still own a few shares (while they’re probably not worth much any more) and I can’t complain that my job is based on processing information (I’m not really sure if universities count as paper economy or real economy…) but I do not like the fact that the richest pay the least tax and the poorest pay the most…

According to the book called Conspiracy of the Rich I’m listening to at the moment by Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad) if you can’t change the system, you can still opt out of playing their game. More on how when I get through more of the book…

Photo:

Believe it or not, this kool graffiti was in the back streets of Sydney of all places (not exactly a city known for graffiti art).

San Churro, if you don’t know, make the best hot chocolate in the world. The Azteca is full of chili and very thick hot chocolate goodness. A few weeks ago after a session of indulgence, my friend asked me how my drinking chocolate fit into my chocolate slavery morals when it comes to eating chocolate? I hadn’t thought about it. But drinking it, or even cooking with cocoa – it’s all part of the same problem.

So… another letter, and another reply:

Dear Juliet,

Firstly, let me thank you for your enquiry and your concern for cocoa growers is most definitely noted. I want to assure you that we are very aware of the issues in producing cocoa around the world and we are working to bring in Fair Trade certified chocolate from Spain.

I think it is important that I clarify at the outset that we are not actually manufacturers of chocolate but rather importers. We source our chocolate from a boutique manufacturer in mainland Spain. We have been lobbying them to produce a Fair Trade line of chocolate for some time now but, because of their size, and the requirements of certification, it hasn’t been economically viable for them. Unfortunately, Fair Trade is not really as high profile issue in Spain as it is here and the UK. What we have been assured by them though is that they have visited the growers at the farms they purchase their cocoa from and made sure that the working conditions are of a Fair Trade standard.

I know this may sound a little hollow, and if it were coming from a larger company I would be more sceptical, but our CEO has met with the directors personally and they are genuine people and have their heart in the right place. We are endeavouring to get a Fair Trade bar on to our shelves to give people the choice, but there is literally no one in Spain offering this product. We sell ourselves as a Spanish chocolate option, so it’s a big decision for us to get our chocolate from sources outside Spain.

Having met with both Susan Mizrahi, the Head of Human Trafficking for World Vision, and Cameron Neil from Fair Trade Australia we have discussed this issue in great depth. They also understand the difficulty involved in producing this product at a commercially viable price at a standard that is acceptable for our consumer. With Cadbury finally committing to Fair Trade (on Dairy Milk bars), this will undoubtedly draw more attention to the cause and increase the availability of the Fair Trade bean for everyone. With Cadbury becoming part of Kraft foods, Kraft has now become the world’s largest purchaser of cocoa product.

As I touched on before, there is also the issue in finding any suppliers making a product that is of a high enough quality to sell in our shops. Our chocolate is a high grade couverture, the same as used in many top restaurants around the world, and to date we haven’t actually tasted anything Fair Trade that stands up to this. There is a major risk, that if we put an inferior product on our shelves, we would actually put people off the idea of Fair Trade altogether. Fair Trade has been fighting public perception about their quality since its inception and I’m very conscious of doing anything that may harm the brand. Once again, greater availability should also see more quality producers and a rise in standards of product.

Whilst we are actively working behind the scenes to get  these changes through, what I am excited to say is that we will shortly be launching Fair Trade coffee in all our stores. We are aiming to have it rolled out by October/November so all our coffee will be 100% certified Fair Trade. Unlike many other companies that offer it only as an option or not at all, it will be our only choice. Whilst we are a chocolate shop, coffee actually makes up a significant part of our product mix, so I hope you see this as a step in the right direction. We are, as far as we know, the only chain that will be serving solely Fair Trade coffee in our stores.

We are comfortable with our suppliers assurance of their line of supply, and whilst certification would be fantastic, it’s simply not viable immediately with the additional costs and limitation it puts on their production ability. We will continue to lobby and raise awareness of the need for Fair Trade and over the coming months you should start to see some Fair Trade options on our shelves.

Once again, thank you for your email, it’s nice to know that there are consumers that think about what they buy. The more of you we have, the easier it becomes to make change happen.

Best Regards,

KYLIE BROWN

PHONE 03 9641 6888  |  FAX 03 9640 0244
WWW.SANCHURRO.COM
SUITE 103, 425 DOCKLANDS DR, DOCKLANDS, VIC 3008

(Note: I have permission to publish this letter)

The whole fair trade situation really is difficult and complex.

I can’t stand that humans beings are treated so badly for something that I enjoy so much, but I am also aware of how limiting our system is… all we can do is try. I am happy to know the efforts companies like San Churro are making toward fair trade and the cessation of slavery. I think Kylie is right - the more people that become aware of the issues, the easier it will be for real change to occur.

The guilt I’ll feel next time I drink an Azteca will be more to do with the gluttony (there is A LOT of chocolate in one glass) than the slavery behind the beans. I trust the intentions of this company so I will continue to enjoy the luxury I have access to, without guilt but still with continuing concern. And I will continue to work within my means toward the structural changes in our system that may actually address the roots of the problem. As with all endeavors I think it’s important to keep motivated, to encourage one another, to share information, and to enjoy the process as we move (albeit slowly) to a better, fairer world.

Or… am I (like someone commented on another of my chocolate blog entries) being too relaxed about this issue?

Love to hear your thoughts…

Photo: my beautiful mum relaxing with my gluttonous dog Bella.

“Camus said there is only really one serious philosophical question which is whether or not to commit suicide,” said Alan Watts, quoting Albert Camus (going on to say he believes there are five serious philosophical questions… see audio book on you tube below)

It is a good question. If we are all going to die at one point or another, then why bother going on? Why not just do it now, get it over with?

What motivates you to get up in the morning, to do something rather than stay in bed all day?

Is it the people you love, or maybe the responsibility of looking after the family you were born into or the one you created, or maybe the desire to create your own? Is it your career, to own your own home, buy your dream boat, or some monetary goals; or maybe your religion, vocation, to help other people, the planet or to manifest some creative idea? Or is it for just to enjoy frivolous fun while it lasts?

What is it that motivates these sources of motivation? Is it for some kind of sense of fulfillment? Is this external or internally determined? That is, are you after some kind of social validation, popularity or acknowledgment from your peers? Or own inner sense of of self accomplishment, self-respect?

For me I think it’s my thirst for knowledge, the process of learning, the ongoing challenges, the brief moments of satisfaction, the creative potential I see around me… and maybe it’s a mix of all of these other things too.

All of these aspects of life seem to culminate into an inner monologue, into a story I narrate to myself, defined by the ups and the downs, and framed by my mind. As long as I can see my life having a purpose, I continue to go on. In sum, I don’t commit suicide because (referring to the ad printed on a car on the picture above) life is good, (even) when it sux.

BTW

Alan Watts is a philosopher / “spiritual entertainer”, who is well worth a listen… this first one where I got this quote:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And this is the intro to his lecture series “Out of Your Mind”

Click here to view the embedded video.

How good is his laugh!!! If you have seen me walking the streets of Sydney listening to my ipod and bursting into laughter, it’s most likely Alan’s laugh that is to blame…

There are two parts to this entry. One that was posted earlier today, which I am redirecting to this one so to ensure I don’t communicate any misleading messages.

Lindt LIED. No more chocolate for me.

While about a year ago I posted the good news that Lindt chocolate was not slave trade chocolate after they responded to my email stating they do not buy beans form the Ivory Coast (see entry Lindt chocolate is NOT slave chocolate)

Now Lan Shiow, a reader of this blog entry, has informed me that in fact over a third of their cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast (see the pie chart above which is sourced from here – http://irpages2.equitystory.com/lindt/pdf/Annual_Results_07.pdf)

The Ivory Coast is where 90% of the beans are harvested by slave labour – people brought there to work under physical force without pay…

I have replied to Lindt’s last email, attaching the above chart.

Dear Jane
Someone from my blog has brought to my attention to your annual report which says in fact you DO source your cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast. Why did you tell me you didn’t?
Thanks,
Juliet.

Will be interesting to see how they respond…

For now this means my favourite chocolate brand has gone out the window.

I can not enjoy something as great as chocolate when I know the physical violence to the lives of other human beings.

To make matters worse, Aldi has decided to stop stocking the Ecuador single-source chocolate – the only chocolate I figured I could safely buy as all its beans were sourced in Ecuador.

If anyone can tell me where I can get nice dark chocolate without the associated horror – please let me know. It might be radical to give up my favourite food, but right now I can’t enjoy it. Until something happens to stop slave trade, NO MORE CHOCOLATE FOR ME

A few hours later, blog entry #2:

Correction: Lindt DIDN’T lie. We can eat Lindt chocolate in peace!

Incredible. I have a reply already!!!

Dear Juliet

I think there is a misunderstanding: The person from your blog has misinterpreted the attached graph referred to. If you look at the graph you will see that it shows the worldwide COCOA production, and has nothing to do with LINDT chocolate production. As a matter of fact, the concerned graph shows that Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa producer, Ghana the second biggest cocoa country.

We confirm once more that – SINCE 2005 - WE DO NOT PURCHASE OUR AFRICAN COCOA BEANS FROM IVORY COAST BUT FROM GHANA. We would very much appreciate if you could inform your blogger, that he/she is wrong and that such kind of uncorrect information does harm the reputation of our company!

Kind regards

Jane

So there you go. Jane, and Lindt, I apologize for my hasty accusations. Note to self: think, try to gather all details, before you act.

That pie chart from my last entry refers to the sources of cocoa beans worldwide – not Lindt chocolate. It was mine and Lan’s mistake.

As far as I’m aware, while Ghana is right next door, the slavery practices only occur in the Ivory Coast… that’s what a university colleague who is from Ghana told me anyway.

You know what this means? I’m back onto chocolate! (That was a very quick turn around).

I am going to buy a block of Lindt Sea Salt to celebrate!!! (Have you tried it yet? It sounds salt+bitter+sweet – it sounds interesting but it’s taste and texture is GREAT!!!)

FYI Previous email correspondence:

Hello
Simple question from a devoted Lindt customer: where does Lindt get their cocoa beans from? Do any come from the Ivory Coast?
Thanks
Juliet

Note: I’m not sure about defamation laws so I have changed the name of the woman from Lindt who lied to me to Jane, just to be on the safe side.

SEE THIS ENTRY, AND IT’S CORRECTION, IN THE NEXT ENTRY

http://www.julietbennett.com/2010/08/18/correction-lindt-didnt-lie-we-can-eat-lindt-chocolate-in-peace/]

While in the past I’ve aspired to balance, I’ve come to embrace the imbalance, accepting that balance is found in the wholeness of all that exists, and over time – it doesn’t have to exist in every moment I experience. The yin and yang – the mixture of cold and hot, of love and fear, of birth and death – provide a fertile ground for new ideas to be seeded and creative potentials to be discovered.

I see this dynamic in everything that surrounds me, in the death of stars above, and in the death of tiny ants that decided to share my bed. I don’t think I shared this story when I was away…

In Pokhara I unintentionally killed a few of ants who were on my bed. I spent the next half hour watching the survivors mourn and try to deal with the death of their loved ones:

First the deceased ant’s friend lay it’s head on top of the dead body.

Then it tried to put the carcass on its back and carry it.

When it was too difficult it rolled the body into a ball and tried again.

Then it started to pull and drag it behind.

I don’t know where it thought the nearest ant hospital or grave yard was located.

Eventually it gave up and curled itself into a ball.

I thought it had committed romantic Romeo-and-Juliet-suicide.

But, when I returned from a dinner, I discovered it had pulled itself together and left the bed.

(Lucky there were two beds in my room so I didn’t actually have to share my bed with the ant carcasses lol)

These ant observations left me thinking, not only about the human-likeness of even the littlest insects, but of life and death and where I draw a line between good and bad.

In India and Nepal I had met quite a few people who do not harm an ant or fly in order to prevent a future reincarnation as an ant or fly. Did I feel bad for killing the ant’s friend? No. Not only because it was an accident, and because I don’t believe in karmic reincarnation of individual souls (I do not fear I’ll now be returning as an ant), but because (as I’ve mentioned in other entries) I see death is an intrinsic part of life.

Some forms of life live long lives, others lead short ones, and that is that.

If the ants I killed had a lot to offer our world, then I would be sad. While collectively ants are an important component of Earth’s ecosystem, there are who-knows-how-many billion more ants who will continue this ant’s job. While his friend missed him dearly, the rest of the universe won’t. I guess that’s sad, but it’s the way the universe works, the way “God” works.

Systems on all levels of our reality are microcosms and macrocosms of the systems on other levels. Human society is no different. Killing cows to eat is a product of our present place in the food chain. 60 million years ago we were rodents being eaten by dinosaurs. Life goes on. Systems and species die and new systems and species arise and evolve.

The miracle of human consciousness is the creative choice that sits in our minds – we can actually contemplate, plan and co-create the future of our world. It gives us foresight, hindsight, guilt and conscience. We humans do seem to have the world,  sitting in our palms. We humans, in this moment, have the power to create and to destroy.

As agents of “God” we have been given this choice: good or evil, with the definition of these loaded words constantly changing, but what at root appear to somewhat be connected to the harmony and disharmony of the universe as a whole.

The question we face (sorry if I come back to these points too much), is what and how: What do we want the world to look like, and how are we going to get there?

Or… am I giving the human intellect too much credit? Is global warming a sign that the universe, or “God”, has a plan of “his” own; that the laws of nature are more powerful than the laws of man?

Maybe the future of humanity lays in the hands of nature, and not the other way around. Maybe we will be a short-lived species, reaping the karmic consequences of our own neglect and making way for the rise of new species who are possibly a little more ant-like in their sustainable ecosystems and balanced metabolisms.

The future is uncertain. I guess the uncertainty and possibility is part of the fun of it.

Photo:

Photographer – Cade Turner www.cadeturner.com.au

Taken at a fancy-dress charity event I photographed on the weekend. I had to dress as “something or someone that inspires me”. I dressed as an angel AND a devil, with the philosophical justification that the existence of opposing forces keeps me challenged, engaged, and inspired.

It was a fundraiser for The Inspire Foundation – a charity established in direct response to Australia’s then escalating rates of youth suicide. www.inspire.org.au

More photos from the ‘To Be Inspired’ Laneway Ball are on facebook: Click Here

“If you don’t wanna be doing it in ten years time… THEN STOP DOING IT NOW!!!!” a wise chick said to the sister of a hen.

Among the haywire of my sister’s hens party, Nadine McKenzie shared what has now become one of my new mottos. In a crazy taxi ride, in a not-so-sober state, I typed it into my phone, and managed to type it into my computer before my phone lost all my notes (side note: if you have an iPhone, I recommend regular backups). Yesterday’s entry about changing something if you are not happy reminded me of Nadine’s motto, so I thought I would share.

I don’t know you can apply this motto to everything all-the-time, because I suppose sometimes you have to temporarily do something you don’t like in order to get to where you want to go.

However, if you find yourself stuck in a rut doing something over and over again that you don’t enjoy, it’s not a bad idea to stop and ask yourself: do I want to be doing this in five or ten years time? And, if the answer is no, then STOP!

In my opinion there are always alternatives do whatever it is that is making you unhappy. Even there appears to be no way out – you just have to think creatively. And to be sure, if you keep doing it without at least securing a plan to get out, you surely will still be doing it in ten years and maybe even twenty years time too.

On a similar note, a mentor once told me that the books and people you are spending your time with today are the best indicator of where you will be in five years time.

So… what are you reading? Who are you talking with? What are you dedicating your time to NOW? Where does this indicate you will be in five year’s time? Is this a place you want to be? If no, then what should you do differently now to put yourself on the path toward your preferred trajectory?

Pictures: cute chicks and my sexy sister hen.

“Are you happy?” A friend asked me a couple of months ago.

“Yes, of course.” I answered without a second thought. Things were up-in-the-air at the time, and I was struggling with this and that, but I was enjoying all of that. For sure I was happy.

I returned the question, “Are you happy?” and was shocked to hear her answer: ”NO.” She went on to explain that she will be happy “one day” but right now, because of this reason and that reason, overall she wasn’t really very happy.

I guess it’s all that “live in the ‘now’, because the ‘now’ is all we ever have” – the ‘present’ is a present, a gift, so we should enjoy it – type of Eckhart Tolle / Deepak Choprah books I’ve read or audio books I’ve listened to, this is so engrained in my head that my daily decisions, big and small, are guided by it.

While I have my moments of frustration and the occasional days I think of as mini episodes of depression, I can’t imagine being in an state of unhappiness for a long period of time. If I’m not happy, I blame only myself for letting myself get to wherever I have gotten. Then I figure out what I need to change, and I change it, true to the flowchart above.

Is this selfish? I don’t think so. The happier I am, the happier the people around me will be. No one likes a wet rag, or a person full of regret and gloom. It’s that over-flowing wine glass analogy again – keep filling up your own and it will flow into others glasses too. I struggle to imagine another way of life.

I guess I knew that not everyone lives this way. The thing is, when you are always inside your own head, it’s easy to forget that not everyone approaches life in the same way you do.

My friend’s answer snapped me back into the wider reality: not everyone is happy.

I have to wonder: if you are not happy, why don’t you change?

Picture:

I came across this picture on a friend’s facebook feed. It has the name of the creator on it although I can’t make out what it says.

Of the emails I sent, Nestle was the first to reply. I didn’t realised that they purchase 11% of the global supply of cocoa-that’s massive! Read their correspondence for yourself below if you wish. While I haven’t heard of UTZ certification, I have to say at least they replied, and the site www.thecocoaplan.com clearly tells me one thing: CORPORATIONS DO HEAR US.

Of course, their care for the consumer comes only relative to the care for the shareholders – who in order to get profit require that the good be sold, but at least the message gets through even if just in part. Yet the question I have to ask is: how do I know that initiatives like this are more than a green-washing-like show. That is, how do I know it’s not all talk? I guess I can’t.

Since my last post my friend also recommended this ABC Four Corners article, that says even Fair Trade products are often not fairtrade – not because the company is being dishonest, but because the farmers and farm owners cheat the system.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2885745.htm

So now I reface the dilemma I faced a couple of years ago when I first saw the full-length documentary on chocolate slavery: can I still enjoy my chocolate if I know it is most likely connected to the physical slavery of africans? No. No I can’t.

I’m not the only one facing dilemmas. The discussion board shows other’s opinions on the matter:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=37&t=1&ps=20&dm=1&pd=2&am=9002

EG.

“The argument about the use of Fair Trade logos with Coffee and Cocoa trade has been going on for some years now, yet the status quo appears to remain static. In fact, I am surprised that it is taken the ABC this long to show the BBC’s Panarama exposé story on the inertia (or lack thereof) of “Fair Trade”, the organisation and their expoitive and cynical licencing of it’s trademark logo, whose motto should read, ïf you pay us more money, you will feel good”and be seen to be be doing something”. I have listened to both BBC World Service and other radio programmes who have covered the subject of child slavery and Fair Trade over the years and nothing has effectively changed. In fact I have an old VHS tape of a documentary presented by the British comedian, Alexei Sayle that was done some 20 years ago on this subject. I would be prepared to pay more for my coffee & chocolate, but only when I have confidence that the end producer receives those gains, and honours the agreements to produce the raw product fairly, including the cessation of child slave labour… I will remain patient and hopefully optimistic, but sadly, I fear that it may not happen during my remaining lifetime. I have long eshewed the practice of dropping bars of chocolate into my shopping trolley, and I suspect that unless consumers act with their conscience and act accordingly, the confectionary manufacturers will continue to look the other way, rather than act assertively, and will always put up the defence of “meeting their customers’ demands in the marketplace” or that other lame excuse ïf we don’t do it, our competitor’s will)… sad but true.”

And another comment:

My partner and I are feeling very frustrated at the lack of ‘bigger picture’ information provided in the chocolate story.

Whilst there was mention of poverty and even the admission of women who had no choice but to see their sons sold, the reporter didn’t do what was necessary in this story and detail the reality of these people’s existence.

We don’t accept that it’s ok for kids to be used in child labour but in many cases these kids have no better option in life. There isn’t a social security system in these countries – some will either work or starve to death. This side of the story was not detailed and these root issues are the real problem – not so much the actual kids or the people who’re bringing the kids to the farms.

In regards to Fair Trade, yes some truths were revealed however what about the issues around Fair Trade – like that only the richer farmers have the ability to get the fair trade certification and thus the cycle of poverty is exasperated - the rich get richer and the poor poorer.

I feel rather angry overall that this story was presented very much through Western eyes with Western standards. Asking the working kids ‘do you go to school’ as if that is our standard of whether something is ok or not. There are many millions of children in the world who do not have the privilege of attending school and this is a result of poverty. There needs to be an appreciation of the reality of the situation and that attending school for many is simply not an option, regardless of work.

It sucks… and it’s really difficult to evaluate. And like all forms of horrible structural violence, one feels hopeless in knowing what to do. One more comment from the ABC message board:

I fear there’s little anyone can do about child labour while corrupt governments hold sway in Ghana and Ivory Coast. What can we in Australia do to stop poverty in Africa? All strength to organisations like Fair Trade. Does anyone have any more ideas on what we can do from here in our comfortable country?

Hmmm Aldi has chocolate with single origin beans – Ecuador doesn’t use slave trade, does it?

…

NESTLE’S REPLY:

Hi Juliet,

Thank you for sharing your concerns about the cocoa we purchase.

In Australia and New Zealand, Nestle has been working to ensure a reliable supply of independently certified cocoa from West Africa, in the quality and quantity we need to use in the manufacture of our chocolate.  We have now received the first shipments of UTZ certified cocoa into our factory at Campbellfield in Victoria and the first Kit Kat 4 Finger bars carrying the UTZ Certified label will be in store from later this year. UTZ Certified is a leading certification program similar to other programs such as Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade.

Please find attached some more detailed information about Nestle and the cocoa we purchase, and if you would like further information please visit our website www.thecocoaplan.com.

We thank you again for your contact.

ATTACHMENT:

Like you, we believe that cocoa must be grown responsibly and children must not be harmed. We purchase 11% of the global cocoa supply – a significant part of which is from West Africa. Therefore, we recognise that we must be exemplary in our actions supporting the cocoa industry.

Cocoa farmers in West Africa are battling aging, diseased plants and a lack of understanding of sustainable farming practices.  In Côte d’Ivoire in particular there has been a history of political instability and the communities are very poor. It is normal in this environment for children to assist on the family cocoa plantation, as is the case in many other cultures. What is not acceptable is when children are forced against their will, are working in unsafe conditions or are not receiving adequate education as a result

So to help address the key economic, social and environmental issues facing the cocoa farming communities we work with, we have developed The Cocoa Plan.

The Cocoa Plan www.thecocoaplan.com brings together Nestlé’s activity to promote sustainable cocoa supply under one banner.  Over the next ten years we will invest globally AUD$113 million in the Plan.  This builds on the AUD$56 million invested in cocoa sustainability initiatives over the last 15 years.

The aim is to achieve higher quality and better supply of cocoa beans while making a positive difference in the lives of farmers, their families, communities and the cocoa industry.  Importantly this plan is being developed in partnership with local communities, government and NGO’s who understand what will make a difference in the long term.

Whilst the Cocoa Plan is principally focused on Côte d’Ivoire, it also covers other global cocoa sourcing regions as we have significant agricultural programmes in Ecuador and Venezuela and a developing program in Indonesia.   Below are some of our commitments:

Helping Farmers:

• Financing Farmer Field School training (directly and as part of wider industry programmes) for improved cocoa farming practices and yields.

Nurturing a long term sustainable future – we have recently opened a Research and Development Centre in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, complementing our facility at Tours in France from where we can provide cocoa farmers with a million higher-yielding, stronger, cocoa trees each year from 2012.  Some details:

• We are also training plant scientists in other cocoa producing countries, such as Ecuador and Indonesia in accelerated cocoa trees propagation
• We work directly with cocoa cooperatives to help them and their farmers be more competitive and pay a premium for their higher quality cocoa
• Providing higher yielding stronger cocoa trees has a direct effect on the quality, yield and sustainability of farmers’ crops, and in turn their income and quality of their life.

The Cocoa Journey

• We’re reducing the complexity of the supply chain and speeding up the processing of raw cocoa beans from the farm to export by helping cooperatives directly

Better Social Conditions

• As part of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), we want to help ensure that children in cocoa growing communities are not exploited and have access to education
• Through partnerships such as with the Red Cross, we aim to deliver improvements in access to water and improved sanitation

Working with partners to improve social conditions and income

• In order to encourage safe and sustainable agricultural practices, Nestlé is a founding member of UTZ Certified Cocoa which aims to develop a large scale cocoa certification system
• We partner and assist government organisations such as the CNRA (Centre National Ivoirien de Recherche Agronomique), the partly state funded Ivorian Agricultural Research Centre that works on research in Côte d’Ivoire to improve the sustainability of cocoa farming

Our plan is clear with a “step by step” approach centred on our tree propagation programme, farmer assistance structure and the relationship with cooperatives.

In Australia and New Zealand, we have been working to ensure a reliable supply of independently certified cocoa from West Africa, in the quality and quantity we need to use in the manufacture of our chocolate.  We have now received the first shipments of UTZ certified cocoa into our factory in Victoria and the first Kit Kat 4 Finger bars carrying the UTZ Certified label will be in store later this year. UTZ Certified is a leading certification program similar to other programs such as Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade.

If you would like further information please visit our website www.thecocoaplan.com

Picture:

Africa. No time to be more creative. And there’s no chocolate in my house (not in protest (at least not yet in protest) but because I buy it, and I eat it within a night. I’m an addict. That’s why I’m so passionate about this topic).

Didn’t they abolish slavery a couple of hundred years ago? Well no – it continues… and it continues such to provide the “haves” with what (in my opinion) is the most delicious tasting delightful experience of all my being: chocolate.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In my opinion there is NOTHING worse than physical slavery and nothing better than chocolate, and so I face the greatest polarity in my world: the best and worse wrapped into a block of bitter sweetness.

Can you believe that in today’s day and age some humans are deceiving other humans into leaving their homes, friends and family, imposing work on them by force (including whips), and without payment? I guess sexual slavery is worse than chocolate slavery, but in my opinion neither forms of slavery should be happening in the 21st century.

Why is slavery allowed to exist? It’s quite simple. It’s all because of the stock market.

The stock market? Yes. Because through the stock exchange responsibility for the consequences of a company’s actions are diffused.

This brings me to what I see to be the tragic flaw of human society in the 21st century: the rules of this game we call business. The first thing I learned at UTS when doing my Bachelor of Business was:

1. Investors invest in shares to make profit on their investment. Many investors live off these rewards, and don’t have to work. Many other people have jobs as intermediaries, buying and selling paper, to make profit from paper. People are making money without adding any physical value to the world.

2. CEOs have one most-important responsibility: to make profits for shareholders. For this he or she receives generous financial rewards, even if it involves decreasing the quality of the product for customers, decreasing the pay or conditions for employees, or destroying the planet.

While shareholders most likely value the needs of fellow and future humans and life on earth, the rules of the game dictate that money invested into shares is done to receive that profit.

There is clearly a disconnection between shareholders and the non-monetary outcomes of their investment. Is this a connection we really want to own up to?

I have some shares, (although I think they aren’t worth anything anymore after the stock market collapsed)…  so let’s take the scenario where I have shares that are actually worth money – would I really want these shares to earn less money?  To be honest, with the rules as they stand, I would want my shares to earn as much as they can or else I would invest my money somewhere else.

Also, I have friends (mainly from my business degree) who work in finance. Would I really want to put my friends out of a job? No. No I wouldn’t. What if the consequence of their jobs, earning lots of money from trading paper, are part of the cause of the poverty of people producing the physical goods we enjoy? I still choose my friends over these people I don’t know.

What if the result of their finance jobs is human slavery? That’s where I draw the line.

That’s where I say to my friend that the unhappiness they are causing is not worth the happiness they gain. That’s where I remind my friend that there’s more to life than the long hours they work in front of a computer playing with numbers. Money isn’t everything. That’s where I advise my friend to get rid of their mortgage, quit their job, and live off their savings for the rest of their life in South America. If only it was that easy… it could be, although my friend may not agree.

The present state of affairs is not a pretty one. Changing the system might be messy, it might be hard for some to deal with. The truth may hurt, but it hurts more if laid untold.

This connection between Shareholders, CEOs, Employees and Customers already exists of course, however, it is hidden behind the guise of “The Corporation”. Whoever was the man (I’m pretty sure it would have been a male) who created and legalised corporations to be treated as their own separate entities, with their own identities, privileges and liabilities separate from their members – should be held accountable for the destruction this single rule has caused for the world’s present and future. Whoever has power to change this law… well, I plead that you do – for the sake of your children.

People are working on solutions. I guess part of the solution is to report to shareholders on the “3 P’s” : Profit, People and Planet - of course, this is easier said than done given the problematic nature of measuring one’s impact on the lives of people or the conditions of the planet. At the very least, even without this reporting structure, surely the rules of the game should reflect the wider values of society?

I guess this would involve:

1. Holding shareholders responsible for the non-monetary consequences of their investment. Eg if you invest in a company that buys their chocolate beans on the stock exchange, a third which come from the Ivory Coast of which 90% involve slave labour, you should feel responsible for this. Also, if the company you have money invested in spills oil in the ocean, you should feel responsible for all the fish, dolphins and animals that die as a result of your investment. Maybe it should go further than “feeling responsible” – if warned and company procedures are not changed, investors should feel obligated to withdraw their investment, or else suffer the legal consequences of the inhuman violence their money is causing.

2. Holding CEOs responsible for the non-monetary aspects of the company they are in charge of. At the very least, the company’s impact on people and the planet needs to be recognised as just as important, if not more important, than profit for shareholders.

The thing is, would this work? Would it make a difference?

It could end up just like the greenwashing that so many companies are into today (making out they are good for the environment when they are still the same product in the same plastic packaging, or donating a dollar and saying they are helping fix the problem). Still, even if it’s only in words I guess you have to start somewhere.

Anyway today I got off my ass and did something tangible about these thoughts. I sent the following letter to a few more of the places where I have indulged in chocolate without knowing whether or not this chocolate comes from the slave farms:

1. Max Brenner (who make incredible waffles)

2. San Churro (who make the best hot chocolates I’ve ever tasted – with chilli!)

3. Nestle (just because I haven’t sent them a letter in a while)

Also I looked at Cadbury: http://www.cadburyfairtrade.com.au/FAQs/FairtradeFAQs.aspx At least they seem to be trying.

If you feel like sending whoever your favourite chocolate companies are a letter, feel free to use my wording:

Dear Max Brenner,

I am a very big fan of your hot chocolates, and your extremely delicious chocolate covered waffles.

Unfortunately I recently saw a chocolate documentary exposing the slavery practices behind the cocoa bean industry on the Ivory Coast. And so I now I simply cannot justify buying chocolate from companies who buy their cocoa beans from the stock exchange (as these are most likely connected to the horrific slavery, which I believe should NOT be allowed in today’s day and age).

I am reviewing my favourite chocolate companies for my blog, so can you please tell me where you get your beans?

Are you moving toward some kind of a fair trade supply chain?

Thank you in advance for your time in replying to this email.

Sincerely,

Juliet.

Anyway, I’ll let you know if I hear back from any of them. If you have any thoughts on how the roles of The Corporation, The Shareholder and The CEO might be better defined, write a comment for me – or if you don’t agree with what I say at all… either way I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Photo:

My gorgeous sisters and cousins indulging in chocolate fondue Bennett-style. I think it was fairtrade chocolate, I hope…

So I watched The Men Who Stare At Goats for the second time, and loved it just as much as I did the first. I’m not joking. I know it got terrible reviews, but I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. And I think it’s got some great quotes. Look, I know it’s a satire, but there’s some quality philosophy here…

Words spoken by LYN CASSADY (George Clooney)

Have you heard of Optimum Trajectory before? (No answer) Your life is like a river, Bob. If you’re aiming for a goal that isn’t your destiny, you will always be swimming against the current. Young Ghandi wants to be a stock-car racer? Not gonna happen. Little Anne Frank wants to be a High School teacher. Tough titty Anne. That’s not your destiny. But you will go on to move the hearts and minds of millions. Find out what your destiny is and the river will carry you. Now sometimes events in life give an individual clues as to where their Destiny lies. Like those doodles you just “happened” to draw?

He unbuttons his shirt and reveals an EYE tattooed on his chest – very similar to the one Bob had drawn. Bob looks up.

LYN CASSADY continues

This is the Ajna chakra – the third eye – the symbol of the Jedi. When I saw you’d drawn it…well, the Universe gives me a sign like that, I don’t ignore it. You’re meant to be here with me, Bob. The Jedi inside you sensed that.

Bob stares at the EYE.

…

Classic movie. With Jedi warriors, psychic spies and sparkling eyes techniques. If you haven’t, you gotta see it. And if you have and you didn’t like it, then I suggest you watch it again… so funny!!!!

…

Sometimes I feel as though I’m traveling along my Optimum Trajectory, and at that time I’m usually full of energy and the river does simply carry me along. Everything goes well. The traffic lights are green.

I can typically tell when I’m trailing away from it. I get stuck at every set of traffic lights and I have a sense of unease pervading my body – a niggling feeling that appears to be connected to an ego-interrupted intuition.

I guess the trick is to notice this, and adjust your path accordingly. But that’s easier said than done…

Taken from script found at:

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Men-Who-Stare-at-Goats,-The.html

Photo:

On Monday, before the rain. Hmmm, I wondered to myself on my last off before an almost 4-day working week (heaven forbid!)… what is my destiny? To read books on the beach? To find the Jedi inside me and jump in the water?

After five minutes of warm sunshine the day turned cold and windy… so I packed up and went home. I guess it wasn’t my day to swim with or against a current. Or to stare at goats.

My PISD – my Post-India Stress Disorder – has been cured!!! Well, at least for the most part, for now.

This post concludes over a month’s worth of writings on re-adjusting to life in Sydney post India’s turning my worldview up-side-down experience. I feel more humble – with a clearer understanding just how much I don’t know and how much I will probably never know. I realise that while I can make a positive impact on the state of our present and future worlds, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

I think have used my writing on this blog as a form of therapy to deal with what I saw to be massive issues : population, inequality, capitalism, and our global ecological crisis.

Out of this I have come to an understanding of my Capitalistic cynicism and my World Peace idealism, and I feel good about that.

I have come to realise that while I’ll always search for The Truth and strive to live The Truth, my truth will probably always be different from your truth, and that’s okay. No matter how similar or different our perceptions of Truth are, the best thing we can do is accept each other person’s right to that perception and not want to change it. No one’s perception is ever static anyway – The Truth, or at least one’s perception of The Truth, is a constantly changing conception.

Similar to this unobtainable truth, while “World Peace” appears to be further out of reach than ever before, I think it is still a worthwhile objective.

Never say never, and never say forever.

Peace may be possible, but as soon as it is reached it will surely disappear. This is the Yin and Yang. The Way of the universe. The way of my own mind, body and soul. The rollercoaster – that is life.

Life may seem more harsh from this perspective, but it also seems more authentic. And I’m ready for it. While fantasy and idealims are fun, at least for the moment I want something real.

George Carlin and Bill Hicks tell it like it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I guess now that I see both sides, and glimpse the dynamics that lay beyond, I just have to shrug my shoulders and say – peace may be an absolutely impossible objective but, like the pursuit for an unattainable Truth, I can enjoy the process of striving for it. While I’m sure these experiences and reflections will influence the rest my life, I’m now well and truly ready to start something new.

“India’s chaos was bigger than your ego,” said Farhad Azad. “You have to remember we are but drops in the ocean.” He was right, India’s incomprehensibility had put me back in my place. Somewhere along the line I came across this song, it’s pretty funny. By Kimya Dawson:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I like it. “I am a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye”

As you can see, over a few rounds of  longneck Himalaya (Nepali beer) on two brief occasions, I learned a lot from Farhad. It’s amazing how when you are open to the universe, you meet the right people at the right time in the most random ways. Similarly, I find it amazing how sometimes I come across little you-tube clips like this one, or words or ideas, that stick with you for life. Coincidence? Synchronicity??

As a drop of water in a vast infinite ocean, I am starting to consceitize (as Lederach, a famous conflict specialist would say,) that is, I am becoming more and more aware of myself-in-context.

As I see it I am a microcosms of microcosms, inside macrocosms of macrocosms.

I am a seemingly insignificant yet an utmost essential piece of an infinitely expandable fractal pattern.

If that’s not a paradox, I don’t know what is.

Picture:

Just a photo of a cactus plant a friend gave me for Christmas… it’s still alive!!! (I don’t have a very good reputation when it comes to plants…) But in terms of fractal patterns it’s probably not the most appropriate shot. If I had a photo of a fern, I would have put that up… you’ll just have to use your imagination

Have you noticed the reoccurring pattern of almost hypocritical contradictions contained in my most recent entries? There seems to be a battle going on inside my mind:a battle between my leftist idealistic side (a perspective largely shared at  the peace conference) that seems to abruptly clash with my more right-wing conservative side (a result of my experiences in India).

I care about people. I care about those who live in unsanitary conditions, those who suffer from war, from hunger, from all forms of slavery – be it economic slavery sitting in front of a sewing machine 12 hours a day, physical slavery forced and whipped to pick cocoa beans without a drop of pay, sexual slavery, or mental slavery.

I care about animals. I don’t like they are our slaves, pumping out our eggs, milk, and that they are bred and killed for my meat. Yet I am not a vegetarian.

I care about our planet. I don’t like that my car pollutes it. I don’t like that the plastic packaging of my products is toxic to it. I don’t like that humanity is chopping down its trees for my paper and digging up its insides for my electricity. Yet I still drive a car, buy too many products, use too much paper, and too much electricity.

I want every life-form to reach it’s full potential and yet I kill ants without a second thought and I am okay with abortion (believing the woman should have a choice over and above the not-yet-conscious entity forming inside her).

I believe in human rights yet I support population control – something has to be done.

I don’t think of different races as “better” or smarter than others, yet I don’t particularly want to see the whole world dominated by one or two of them.

I want to let all the asylum seekers into Australia, but I also don’t like feeling I’m a minority in my own city (the other day I swear I was the only caucasian-Australian walking down George Street in Sydney.)

I want Australia to pull troops out of the war, actually I want all the wars to end, but I don’t complain about the cheap oil and security that comes from their actions.

I am generous but I am greedy. I want everyone to have somewhere like Australia to live, but I don’t want everyone to live in Australia.

In short, I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. And I don’t quite know what to do about it.

Does the value of life reside in a life form’s innate potential – the potential that their DNA allows one to have, or to the potential that a life’s situation provides the opportunity to achieve?

There is quite a difference and the implications are quite significant. You see, if innate potential is the dictator of life’s value, then I feel bad for cattle we breed to eat, for chickens that lay my eggs, and even for the horses whose sides I kick and neck I pull on to stop and go when I please. These animals have an innate potential that can only be discovered if they are FREE TO DISCOVER IT - something that, in these days of human dominion, such an opportunity is not really allowed.

But, how can the true potential of life be evaluated in our modern times?

In the last six thousand years or so, many animals have evolved into a state of dependency. Dogs, in the process of human’s domestication, have replaced the fierceness of their days as wolves with floppy ears and wagging tails. While they appear to like their new roles as man’s best friend and while they receive much love from humans in return… were they ever asked if they wanted to give up their freedom to roam the woods and instead spend their days lazing around our homes?

I guess this process of “co-evolution” wasn’t exactly a conscious decision of our ancestors – it just happened as a result of changing environments and changing levels of awareness – as a result of decisions made by ALL the species involved.

So… who is to judge what is right and what is wrong, what is the creative potential of these animals, and how this fits with the creative potential of other species, including our own?

Applying such ideas to human situations I consider those sitting behind sewing machines for 12 hour days 7 days a week, getting paid a pittance, and I try to think about the limitations their situation puts on their potential. But then I reflect – if I hadn’t made some pretty radical decisions about my own life, I may have been slaving away my life behind a computer pumping out 12 hour days 7 days a week working on spreadsheets (in a past life – around 8 years ago when I first left uni – I was an Accountant)…

And I ask myself: what allowed me the opportunity to pursue my own creative potential?

A few key people in my life who provided me the encouragement, and maybe even more so the people who provided me the dis-encouragement (which makes one even more determined to prove them wrong), spurred me to quit Accounting and travel to Japan where a new process of self-discovery first began.

It’s slightly controversial to say, and I know many will disagree with this statement, but in my opinion ALL humans have the innate potential to be academics, artists, accountants or actors – it’s just a matter of the opportunities they receive through their education and the cultivation of a vision of how they perceive their own capabilities in life.

This idea seems to make the ethical dilemmas of our unjust world even more difficult to deal with…

If I truly believe that anyone can achieve ANYTHING that they set their mind to – if they truly believe it to be possible – then where is the limit to anyone’s potential? Maybe there is no limit. So if you think of violence as being anything that prevents someone from reaching their true potential, then does that make everything in the world violent? Ok, now I’m really tying myself in knots.

Of course seeing the most unlikely dreams come true in my own life doesn’t this ask and recieve concept a universal law… yet when I combine these ideas with the concepts of innate and situational potential, I return to situation: if anyone else were born into my shoes, would be typing these exact words in this exact minute? I’m no psycho-analytical genetic expert, but my hunch is that they would… I’m not so sure how much of us is innate – might everything be situational?

What is it that prevents some dreams from becoming reality? In my observation it seems that it is fear and lack of confidence and faith in oneself, and a lack of ability to imagine the possibilities, that prevents ones ability to dream or prevents the dreams one has from manifesting in their reality.

Is it possible that we are limited only by our own minds?

Or, as Henry Ford put it: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.”

But then, there’s something to be said for innate factors – like the genetics of our parents, the skills our ancestors have learned and passed on… but are these innate, or situational to the choices or our ancestors?

Maybe in the end it is a combination of both the innate and the situational potential we are each presented that dictates the creative achievements of our lives? Maybe this whole idea of one or the other is just a play with words and concepts and all dependent on my own culturally cultivated perceptions…

It’s nice to think we are all “worth the same”, but when you see in other cultures the lack of value placed on human lives, and the extra value placed on, for example, a cow’s life.. you remember that grand cultural influence that shapes our perspectives and values. Are our creative achievements something we can use to evaluate the value of one life or life form over another?

Ok, I hope this entry isn’t too randomly haphazardly put together – I did warn you about my grasshopper mental state I blame on my PISD – my Post India Stress Disorder…

Anyway, in conclusion, let me just share that I’m starting to think that when it comes solutions to poverty and environment and conflicts and all the other stuff I rant on about, maybe the greatest gift we can give  is the ability to imagine the possibilities – the ability to dream… And to share a little secret: the only person who can empower you to achieve your dreams, is yourself.

Photo:

Set up by mwah and snapped by Lucinda Amon on the morning after my sister’s wedding in Bowral. Another one for my ongoing series – which I think I’m going to name “The Bridge” rather than “The Crab” so I can write up in artist blurbs as “symbolising the bridging of present to future” … opinions???

If the pursuit of peace is an attempt to rid the world of violence, we must ask ourselves – “violence” through the eyes of who? Defining violence from the perception of a collective-humanity, is very different form defining it from the perception of each individual:

- If we define violence from the perception of all-humans-together, then are we not opening the doors for evil dictator, idealistic warfare and other devastating forms of violence to be committed on individuals?

- But, if we define violence as purely from an individual perspective, eg broaching on a woman’s right to have as many children as she pleases, then are we not lending ourselves to neglect the big-picture?

If we prioritise individual human rights over the rights of all life collectively, might we not cause the greatest violence of all – the destruction of our planet – a violence against all humans and life of today and the future???

Oh woe woe: what confusion, what a predicament, what a trade off…

Does this mean peace is a vain pursuit? An idealist impossibility? An unattainable objective? Maybe. But is, like the quest for Truth and Balance, the process of pursuing peace still a valuable one?

The last couple of years I have studied “Peace And Conflict Studies”, and while this has influenced many of my entries, I think it might be useful to outline some of the key terms and concepts. I guess where the idea of peace gets airy fairy is in it’s definition… what exactly are we talking about when we talk of “peace”?

First I wish to clarify that peace is NOT the absence of conflict.

Life is defined by dualisms, by the dynamic relationships between opposing forces, by conflict. Conflict leads to evolution, to growth, innovation and improvement. Conflict is good. Violence, however, is not. And violence need not be a part or a result of conflict.

Professor Galtung defines two categories of peace:

- Negative Peace - the elimination of war; and

- Positive Peace – the elimination of overt and subtle forms of violence including Direct Violence (eg stop me from hitting you) and Indirect Violence (eg stop me from constraining your freedoms) and Structural Violence (a form of indirect violence that is concealed by a system structure).

Peace involves the resolution of conflict through non-violent means - something I think our schools could do better providing us the skills to put into practice. For example, the learning conflict resolution skills such as how to map out a conflict : how to define the central issue (in a blame-free language),  identify the manifest and un-manifest pressures, distinguish transitory interests from cultural values and unchanging needs as well as identifying the fears and concerns of the parties involved, allows common visions and strategies to be designed in a far more efficient and effective way. (See Burton (1990) and Tillet (1999) if you are interested in learning more.)

Positive Peace is about JUSTICE…

Which brings me back to the problem with words and definition. Whose justice are we talking about? My idea of justice, or yours? What kind of justice? Economic? Social? Intellectual? All of the above? The problem with a definition like this is that my idea of justice might very well be your idea of oppression. Our means of evaluating is relative to our culture, education, and experience.

And I start to wonder: is the predicament between human rights and planetary rights, anything like the difference between capitalist mentalities and communist ones? How is can it be I feel I empathise with both?

What do YOU think:

Should we prioritise human rights at the expense of planetary ones?

What is more important, our individual present or our collective future?

References:

Barash, D.P. (1991) “The Meaning of Peace” & “The Debate Over Peace Studies” in Introduction to Peace Studies. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing.

Burton, J. (1990a). Human Needs Theory. Conflict: Resolution and Prevention. Macmillan. London, UK.

Galtung, J. (2000). TRANSCEND: 40 Years, 40 Conflicts. Searching for Peace: The Road to TRANSCEND. J. J. Galtung, C G. London, Pluto Press.

Tillett, G. and B. French (2006). Conflict and its Resolution. Resolving Conflict: A Practical Approach Melbourne, Oxford University Press. 3rd edn.

Photo:

A pile of rubbish in Kathmandu, Nepal. While the west buries their rubbish in the ground or out at sea, to me this site (and even more so the wretched smell) was a stark reminder of humanity’s impact. It was seriously grotesque, and if it’s avoidable I think it should be avoided.

Give me a shorter more fulfilling life over a long drawn out crappy one – in my mind QUALITY trumps quantity, and planetary rights trump human ones. But maybe that’s just me.

“On the technical side there is no limit to population,” said a scholar after talking about solving world hunger. “We just need more efficient systems, and for the rich to eat less.” This may be true, BUT the greater question (in my opinion) is: Do we want more people living “simply” in a crowded place, or less people living lives of luxury?

“The population of the poor isn’t the problem,” so the idealists (like I used to be) say… “We actually need less white people.”

Given the ecological footprint of the one billion in rich industrialised countries compared to the six billion in non-industrial countries, this statement speaks some truth. But I’m not so sure that decreasing the population of white people will solve our ecological predicament.

I realise the basic solution is suggested to be the connection between income, education and birthrates. The more money people have, the more educated people get, the less children women want… and this will (somehow magically) stop the population at around 10 billion… but will it?

Just because a majority of white people have chosen to have less children as they get richer, largely because we have fallen for consumerist ideals and the economic slave system that supports this, does not mean that people in other cultures are going to respond to wealth in the same way. I’m not an anthropologist but it seems rather presumptuous to think we can understand people of other cultures, and predict how these people will react to education and money.

In the last two hundred years we have allowed one billion people to be become almost seven billion, and almost six of those billion have not been educated or had money. What will they do when they are educated or have money? In China as they get more money, they build more, buy more cars and have more children, not less of them.

“Human rights are meaningless without ecological rights,” said another one of the speakers. This seems to be getting closer to the real issue. Surely there are limits??? EVENTUALLY, when the planet has 5 billion, or 50 billion, there’s going to have to be some sort of population controls implemented – so why not be proactive and do it NOW, before there are even more ridiculous numbers of us?

How? I don’t know… I guess through some kind of recognition of collective responsibility and gaining momentum in a collective desire to make the world the place we want it to be. Should that involve some legalities that compromise individualistic human rights? In my opinion, yes. I think the future of life-on-earth as a whole is more important than us as individual humans having a right to choose the number of children we are going to have.

What do you think?

What’s more important: quality of life, or quantity of lives?

I used to think we could all be less greedy – that if we wanted less “stuff” we would be happier, and some of that wealth would be shared with the poor. Apparently this simple shift has the power to end world hunger – the rich do with less, so the poor can have more. More recently I have realised that when I contemplate greed I have been wondering if it is actually a human problem that we have the ability to change? Or is greed simple a part of all life’s struggle to survive?

In a universe that (at least at present) is constantly expanding, getting more and more complex, and consuming more and more space, could greed be a universal constant? Is greed embedded in our DNA?

Check out the monkey who found a bag of food in India…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maybe greed is so deep in our nature, it’s not something that can be fought? Maybe we humans are just greedy monkeys, so we just have to accept ourselves and allow greed to be?

If we accept greed, and hence accept that humans will always want more and better, should we give up on dealing with this elephant? While reading a book on religions in Nepal, I noted a Taoist teaching: “DO NOT QUIT”. So let us take their advice, and continue.

Also in Nepal, I met some travelers who were happily living a nomadic non-attached way of life.

“Money will come when, and if, I need it,” the cool collected hippy explained. She had been traveling for over 15 years or more, living on nothing yet living in abundance. “When you are traveling cheap you really don’t need much.” At $3 a roof over your head, and $2 for a massive meal, you are talking $1500 a year, so if you spent a few years working to save up $100,000 you could retire for life. We really don’t need much to survive. Especially if, like this hippy’s neighbor, you paraglide from place to place! Now that’s seriously  “following the wind”. And no footprint whatsoever.

“Desire nothing, enjoy everything.” I think there is something in this Buddhist-approach to life – I definitely prefer life when I’m not fussing over money.

But how about non-attachment to other things? Do we really want to give up our desires?

Isn’t some attachment is what life is all about? Isn’t it the desire for something we don’t have, what keeps us going?

Be it attachment to people you love, attachment to a job you enjoy, attachment to a computer that carries hours upon hours worth of writing on it, or attachment to life itself, I’m not so sure I want to let that part of life go… There is something to be said for life’s dynamism – for the highs and lows, for the enjoyment that comes from pain and fear that adjoins attachment – it keeps things interesting. A life lived completely without attachment may contain no suffering, but it also (in my opinion) doesn’t contain much joy.

Of this book on religion the Taoist philosophies really resonated with me, mainly because Taoism values the opposites, the ups and downs, the yin and yang, rather than wishing them away. Taoists describe“Ziran” – state of “self-so” which means living in a state of being that ‘allows things and circumstances to unfold’. I really like this idea – connecting to everything, and allowing the most desirable scenarios manifest in reality.

Taoists describe the universe as our body, and the universe our nature; and they recommend we ‘keep in mind both the manifested and the unrevealed sides of the ultimate reality’ – I like these ideas too. We know the many things we know, but we must never forget there is SO SO SOOOO MUCH THAT WE DO NOT, AND CANNOT KNOW.

According to the Taoists, ‘The Way” is found in balance, in knowing what is enough – and they say that learning to say “enough” is achieved through an ‘intuitive observation of oneself and the universe’.

Coming back to my question from yesterday: can Buddha help us deal with the elephant in the room? Can finding inner peace help us do something about the population problem? I guess feeling peaceful inside ourselves can open the channels to creative solutions (like that magic biodegradable bag they put my underwear in), so I wonder, if we combine this with the idea of learning how to say “enough”, can we start to shrink the elephant?

References on Taoism:

Bede Bidlock, Why I am a believer – edited by Aruino Sharma (2007) p.200.