A Bit of a Nodal Point…

It has been an observable in my life that when life trajectory is approaching a nodal point for change, where different paths might offer, that things tend to stack up like London buses running behind schedule. Events converge, apparent available time runs out and a number of crises manifest. Things start to get hectic and it is difficult to keep clarity.

At the moment we have the selling up house and buying a smaller one choice. That might be in France or UK. In any case a move. I could do science “A” level tutoring in the UK for a few extra quid a month.

Also, there is an increasingly pressing need for me to get replacement hip surgery, which adds to the mix. Unfortunately, I could not find contact details for a traditional Fairy Godmother on the internet. Hence, the joints are only going to get worse and the pain is unlikely to diminish.

We have the Myeloma sword of Damocles hanging over as per usual.

The feasibility of a nanna-flat in the UK looks OK. There are less bungalow type houses here. The cost of living in the UK is a lot higher. We are in the administrative system here and could qualify for a 10 year right to live card next year.

I am not seeing anything new that I want to do in our garden of two acres, so the time to move is now or around now. That is also the feeling. There are a few before sale internal DIY tasks which I/we can hack. All of this is very normal and mundane.

I know from what I am picking up subjectively that there is a small finite possibility that events could transpire which would markedly change the trajectories. They are related to my Tibetan Buddhist dreams. They hint at a trajectory far away from nanna-flats, Zimmer frames and secateurs.

That febrile trajectory is not close to taking shape, though inquiries may have been made today. It is a lot quicker to ask me direct than to speculate.

A simple small win on the lottery would enable. It would buy room to manoeuvre on the house move front. It would not have to be much…

I have had some more titanium put in today. I have an implant fitted in my jaw into which a false tooth will be screwed at a later date. So, yippee, antibiotics for a week.

Stuff continues to stack up…

The Wrong End of the Stick Dream 16-03-2025

An English idiom meaning to get something wrong by one’s approach by making stupid assumptions. To think that something you’ve been offered is the opposite of what it is. To confuse left and right. To turn an ability into a disability, a solution into a problem.

From the Urban Dictionary

Overnight I have had another dream in which some people get the very wrong idea about my “relationship” with them and on the basis of that make incorrect assumptions about what I must and will do for them, to help them out and otherwise clear up a mess which is entirely of their own making. They, in the dream, imagine that I am a bit like one of them, on the same level and with the same motivations. Which I am not.

The dream prior to that says that in some things I have no choice. I simply cannot do what might be convenient because it is evil.

This recurrent theme of somebody else’s mess has occurred numerous times over more than the last decade or so. It is not my mess, I cannot clear it up, nor can I like a fairy Godmother rescue them. Bonnie Tyler may be singing a song but it does not refer to me, sorry. I cannot offer any advice because it would fall on deaf ears.

It is said that a warrior lives by challenge. I have found increasingly that the challenge for me is non-intervention, to leave well alone and to let others have the opportunity to learn. This notion of stepping back did not initially sit well. It turns out not getting involved or conflated into the drama of others, is both relaxing and economic. In the midst of some soap opera or other everything seems very important, with detachment that looks more like emotional over reaction. Some people like drama and thrive thereupon. They stoke it and feed.

I have learned that it is impossible to explain to someone caught up in and obsessed by their social conditioning, what things are like, and how they look, when that conditioning has nearly completely gone. It is one of those things that has to be experienced. No verbalisation can convey.

This may sound arrogant, as if I may be looking down. Is that real or your reflection which you see in the mirror I hold up for you. Am I haughty? Or have I at least partially risen above the soap-opera-plane?

Poor me, I am so misunderstood…

It that my being victim or a truth of sorts.

I do not feel victimised rather inured to, accustomed with, bored by, an experience I have had often in my sixty years.

——————————————————-

We’re only making plans for Nigel
We only want what’s best for him
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel just needs that helping hand

And if young Nigel says he’s happy
He must be happy
He must be happy
He must be happy in his world

We’re only making plans for Nigel
He has his future in a British steel
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel’s whole future is as good as sealed, yeah

XTC

———————————————————-

Intricate Pasta – Boris Johnson’s Puzzle – Butterflies Dream 20-02-2025

Here is this morning’s dream

The dream opens with Boris Johnson sitting at a large rustic wooden kitchen table in an ample farmhouse style kitchen with Aga and range. On the table is a pasta making machine. On two wire racks, one elevated and the other just above table level are two circular pieces of pasta. They are around 30cm in diameter and dried. The pasta is whole meal. The pasta is shaped into a kind of intricate relief design in which there are very fine, filagree designs. There is more air than pasta. I know that the designs are very brittle. Carrie is there but not to the fore.

I am sat at the table with Boris. The pasta machine starts up and a third pasta circle comes out in normal flour pasta. It slides onto the metal tray of the pasta machine. Both Boris and I know that the pasta is Boris’ puzzle to solve and that now it is three dimensional. He wants to get started and solve the puzzle. I remind him that the pasta is delicate and that the third piece has not yet set. Under no circumstances should he rush.

I look at his watch, it says 5:35. I know that he has an upcoming meeting. He looks at the watch and says that he must dash. Carrie pipes in and says yes, otherwise they will be late. Implicit is that Boris’ timekeeping is not great. They depart.

Sometime later I am walking in the / my garden. Boris and Carrie are eating a packed lunch with a thermos of tea in a sunny clearing. Boris is unburdened and light, somehow younger. The atmosphere is relaxed. They are the other side of a partial fence to me. On my side there are a multitude of butterflies, all different colours, yellows and purples, reds and blues. All the butterflies are large the size of my hand or bigger. They are partially shaded. Boris asks if the direct sunlight is good for the butterflies. I say that they are happy. At dusk they yield to the moths who come out in force.

I walk to a covered bridge made out of metal. The ceiling of the bridge is around ten feet high, and it is spacious. It starts near where Boris is having the picnic. A very large purple, indigo and red butterfly flies towards me and gives my face, which it envelops a hug with its wings. It is the size of my head. I can see its eyes and antennae. We start to talk in a very high-pitched butterfly language, with the butterfly now flying very close to my face. We are looking at each other as we speak.

Boris is astounded. I explain to him that I can talk to butterflies and moths. If he wants, we can help him with his puzzle.

The dream ends.

The Problem of Both And

This “problem” can be found on all sides. It stems from the desire to have both one thing and another. It has a root in idealism but also in an unwillingness to choose or decide.

At the moment relatively wealthy humanity is accustomed to having multiple up to date electronic devices, frequent new cars, foreign holidays involving air travel and conspicuous consumption which is sometimes diarised for show in social media. Yet in the back of the mind there is the spectre of anthropogenic climate change. There is a weak desire to slow this down. People want both their current way of life and to limit the ravages of global warming. Most approaches to planetary heating back “solutions” which do not significantly impinge on current lifestyle.

This is an obvious fallacy.

But it is one that is not addressed because in affect it is taboo and politically very unpopular. In wanting both and decisive action is delayed and put off. The advocates of striving to limit climate change themselves travel by air. People cross their fingers and hope we can limit climate change without changing our behaviours. The fairy godmother of technology will wave its magical AI wand and ta-da we have a solution for global warming. In the meantime, business green washes to keep the greenbacks rolling.

There is an awful lot of kidding and people are willing to be kidded because their conscience is assuaged by flashy on tone public relations. Look the oil manufacturers and producers are transitioning to green alternatives…😉

“Phew, I can have my holiday in the Maldives after all…”

Elsewhere I have predicted that the impact of climate change needs to get catastrophic before humanity wakes up. By which time it will be very late, perhaps too late.

We saw it coming, we did fuck all.

“Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospect; it has to be shattered before ascertained.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Humanity has a monkey with its hand in the cookie jar mentality. Inside the cookie jar are lovely cookies. We put our hand in it to extract the cookie but we cannot pull it out with the whole cookie in hand. The villagers are coming with sticks. We are so tempted by the cookies; we do not want a beating by the villagers. What to do?

This is a catch 22 which stems from greed and desire. In the absence of desire, there is no dilemma. Drop the cookie and get the hell out of Dodge. But it is a lovely cookie with banana and chocolate chips….

I cannot have both the cookie and avoid a beating.

No desire, no greed, no problem. Let go. Do a runner.

Most catch 22s stem from wanting something, some desire or some ambition. They are based on preferred outcome. In the absence of these the dilemma dissolves; it is a figment of mind and emotion.

Humans have a face in a jar problem. Inside the jar is their face, their social self-image, which they are clinging on to. They may want to resolve a relationship or ameliorate it but they are burdened by their face which they hold clenched in their fist. They are unable to shake hands whilst their fist is clenched tight around the mask of face. So, for most of their lives they walk around with their face clenched bare knuckled in fist and never know the freedom of an open palm free of social encumbrance. They may want to save both their face and a relationship. However, this is impossible, humans are stubborn and before long, it is too late.

You can see this human folly all around you.

Life is not a quantum superstition state. Sooner or later the both-and must be measured and collapse into either-or. The coherence of the both-and is finite. Decision is not something people are fond of.

Sometimes nature, the universe, or a planet will make the decision for us…

Wanting both-and is greedy.

LIFE is way bigger than petty human want and desire…