Saturday, January 29, 2005

pi

Saw Pi last night and thought it a brilliant film. Struck by the idea that chaos and disorder are greatest at the least level of understanding, but that as more becomes undrstood, chaos and and randomness decrease - to the point, I suppose, of perfection - ultimate understanding and, surely, completion (the end of the world). Then, maybe, recycling towards the next Big Bang and the start of what initially is total chaos and disorder. Over and over again. Maybe this is also how multiple and alternative universes generate.

holy grail

From Michael Baigent et als work: Holy Blood & Holy Grail - "If the Prieure de Sion intends to 'show its cards', the time is ripe for it to do so. The political systems and ideologies which, in the early years of our century, seemed to promise so much have virtually all displayed a degree of bankruptcy. Communism, socialism, fascism, capitalism, Western style democracy have all, in one way or another, betrayed their promise, jaundiced their adherents and failed to fulfil the dreams they engendered. Because of their small-mindedness, lack of perspective and abuse of office, politicians no longer inspire confidence, only distrust. In the West today there is increasing cynicism, dissatisfaction and disillusion. There is increasing psychic stress, anxiety and despair. But there is also an intensifying quest for meaning, for emotional fulfilment, for a spiritual dimension to our lives, for something in which to genuinely believe. There is a longing for a renewed sense of the sacred that amounts, in effect, to a full-scale religious revival - exemplified by the proliferation odf sects and cults, for example, and the swelling tide of fundamentalism in the United States (me: and elsewhere)". page 437.

This book was first published 1982! Correctly analytical but prophetically inaccurate as yet>

Friday, January 21, 2005

views of retirement

Friend P retires today and I am reminded of how I felt when this happened to me and how people around me reacted. Lots of people asked me, pityingly, what I was going to do. Whilst I had no doubt that retirement was going to be great, I still felt unable to give concerned well-wishers a satisfactory (for me) answer as to what retirement was going to be like.

Looking back now I can give an analogy: retirement can be like opening a store cupboard. For me, as the doors flew open, I was swamped by all the things that poured out of the cupboard and I know that I will never get round to dealing with everything that fell out. But for others, the cupboard is bare.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

happy new year

well it has been - police dropping abh charges in favour of caution and a good party at Cs. Now back to fitness regime.