During dark days of worsening refugee crises and increasing populism, can we still imagine reaching a state of "xenophilia"...overcoming our "homophily", i.e. the love of that which is like us, and reaching the love of that which is different?
Indeed, if we're ever going to care enough about conflict, genocide, poverty, hunger etc. enough to act on them properly, then we need to try much harder to avoid conflict with people we might not yet fully understand.
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts...half owing to the numbers who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs - George Eliot, Middlemarch
Authoritative lists of supposed global role models provoke approval and controversy in equal measure, but also raise the more important question: who is honouring the vastly greater number of non-celebrity role models among our human family of perhaps 7.8 billion alive today?
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs - George Eliot, Middlemarch
Unexpected celebrities have in recent times included the likes of Captain Sully Sullenberger and Susan Boyle, whose years of patiently working on their own talents suddenly came good, shooting them instantly to international attention, and who then accepted the spotlight, perhaps reluctantly, but with quiet dignity nonetheless.
"Sauin" is the name in Manx Gaelic of the festival marking the start of the year's dark half, celebrated from dusk on 31 October to dusk on 1 November. In Gaelic & Irish, "Samhain" is a liminal time, marked by fire, and the crossing of thresholds.
A beautiful seasonal quote from the inspiring Damh the Bard.
While most people start running for the physical benefits of the sport, it can also be hugely beneficial for your mental health. A study on 14,000 people undertaken by Asics(opens in new tab) during the pandemic has found that 82% of UK runners say running helps to clear their mind, and 78% feel more sane and in control as a result of running.
The Garden releases its last
radiance, not as something failed,
but as its full reason for being: to give
continually, to its last bit of energetic being.
Its giving is its beauty. It is a smile,
it is the heart of love.
- from “Equinox” by Richard Wehrman, from the book, THE BOOK OF THE GARDEN, Copyright © 2014
The Autumnal Equinox occurs the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator from north to south. On this day light and darkness are equally balanced.
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The weird idea that Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily, if Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, goes supernova, recalls a dream, many years ago, of climbing a ridge in the desert and seeing a dawn uncannily like this photo...
The most crucial decision-making skill, some scientists are now saying, is the ability to think about your own thinking, or metacognition. According to this emerging new vision of decision-making, the best predictor of good judgement isn't intuition or experience or intelligence, but willingness to engage in introspection, to cultivate "the art of self-overhearing".
Not quite the same thing as blogging, I feel. A fool with a tool is still...well, let's just say that perhaps not all humans demonstrate all of the time the "floodlight intelligence" that's supposed to distinguish us from the "laser-beam" intelligence of other animals.
Tim Marshall produced a surprise bestseller in 2015: Prisoners of Geography argued maps could explain the biggest problems in international relations. To understand Russian aggression in Ukraine, for example, you needed to grapple with the shape of the north European plain, which has directed centuries of Russian military history.
The follow-up, The Power of Geography throws things forward to the regions that will shape tomorrow’s global politics, including Iran, the Sahel and space. His experience close to many frontlines means he knows first-hand how physical topography conditions the literal contours of battle. With a rare ability to boil down complexity with wit, he maps a baffling world for us all.
If the past is replayed too fast, life seems futile, and humanity resembles water flowing from a tap, straight down the drain. A film of history for today needs to be in slow motion, showing every person who ever lived as a star, though dimly visible in a night sky, a history still unexplored - Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity
A call to action. Time to explore these unexplored histories together.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment topped Open Culture's crowdsourced list of Books Intelligent People Should Read. I certainly enjoyed its narrow intensity, a stark contrast to the broad sweep of the same author's equally magisterial The Brothers Karamazov.
Reading Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and subsequently speaking with people with first-hand experience in Rwanda, makes one wonder about gradual disengagement from morality. For example, anti-Israel sentiment can morph into anti-Jewish sentiment. Del Amitri warned 30 years ago that "they'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock and we'll all go along like before".
"There are two great forces of human nature......self-interest and caring for others", according to Bill Gates.
If true, then:
(1) What is the approximate balance between the two today - in individuals, organisations and societies? How much time do we really spend thinking about and then acting on other people's needs?
(2) How can we start an open and ongoing debate about what the balance should be - next year, in 2030 etc? If we don't do this, then how can individuals really know how to lead a "good" life, can organisations know what their wider responsibilities really are and can societies really know how to develop fair policies for all?
Bob Marley has enchanted me since the summer following his very untimely death. Too young to be very aware of him in his short prime, I discovered him during those long, languid days in my always special place.
To Bozar in Brussels in 2016 for the final days of the Facing the Future exhibition, which shed light on about 180 works created between 1945 and 1968 by artists from Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Notwithstanding the tensions between Eastern and Western Europe in the years following the Second World War, artists on both sides of the Iron Curtain experimented in similar ways: from media art to action painting, conceptual art and sound art.
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Swimming in open water - ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans - is like crossing a boundary into another world. The ancient Celts even believed that submersion could provide a link to the supernatural - Carpe Diem
Entranced many years ago by Roger Deakin's wonderful Waterlog, which I have lent subsequently to others and they've had similarly joyous reactions.
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Growing herbs, seeing them, smelling them, touching them, eating them and I hope, soon sharing them (as plants and incorporated into recipes and remedies), makes me - as it does millions of others, i'm sure - just feel better.
Jekka McVicar is an inspiration - she now grows around 700 different herbs.
In 2018 I was privileged to spend a day in the company of the wonderful Jekka and her family. Jekka, with no fewer than 14 Chelsea Golds, probably knows as much about herbs as anyone in England. Then in 2021, I attended Jekka's first HerbFest, which was filled with expert talks, gardening workshops and cookery demonstrations from Jekka and her team and friends.
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Please see below a range of 2021 outlooks and forecasts, grouped across the following 21 topics.
There is also a bonus list of additional 2021 forecasts in appendix.
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At the start of 2020, I assembled the following range of forecasts. Reviewing this at the end of 2020, it is clear that no-one anticipated the seismic year ahead.
