Practical Thoughts

Dear Reader, I emerged out of World War Two as a one-year-old and what I encountered in the aftermath, as I grew up in a reasonably happy family in the UK, was a note of positivity. No one wanted any more wars after 10 years of extreme suffering spread over 30 years; 10 years in which many millions were killed or maimed. These wars had been too close to home. The UK was set back on its heels having been virtually bankrupted by a war effort to - ostensibly - retain a free world. What the UK populace called for in 1945 was peace based on social justice and opportunity for all. A General Election brought a sea change in the kind of national government wanted, a government that was committed to much-improved education open to all and a healthcare system to replace the unaffordable to most system that was previously in place. These things happened, or were initiated, but not without experiencing severe austerity to help pay for it. But the fact that these changes happened created improvemen

Dear Reader, Imagine a world where the human population has been suddenly reduced by 99.2%. It hardly bears thinking about, but why am I even thinking such a provocative thought? As will be seen it is to hypothetically yet  forcefully  illustrate (by analogy) the impact on the balance of nature as another species has already been reduced by that figure of 99.2%. Let us just consider the situation. If the human population was reduced by such an amount (and I am certainly not advocating it should), the effect would be that the rest of nature would take over and everything on Earth would come back into balance. The cessation of the slaughter of plants and wild creatures - directly and indirectly - would enable wildlife to get back to where it was (say) 500 years ago. In a healthy, sustainable, state. That would be the end of virtually all the environmental problems we have, and also would probably greatly assist in the solving of the climate change issue. Yet we - as a worldwide people,

Dear Reader, Hello! It has been a very long time since I wrote on this blog. There have been circumstances that have prevented this of late, but, at the same time, there did not seem to be much else of any importance that needed to be said that was different from what I had already posted over the preceding years. A sabbatical was appropriate. Truth transcends opinion? Some may say my posts are only my point of view anyhow, and that other opinions exist. The question arising therefore is whether that is a valid view, or is that a view that we have been educated and/or feel obliged by society to accept? Perhaps we need to study whether there is a Truth that transcends opinion. Perhaps we need to study ourselves thoroughly to understand the world. As Socrates once said: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I try to relate only what certain ancient teachings say about the application of wisdom in our lives, knowing that is what the future is to bring about. Materialism, s