Edge of forever

I have come to the conclusion that the Universe is infinite. My reasoning is that outside of spacetime there is an absence of absolutely everything, including empty space itself. Clearly, this is very difficult to get your head around, a bit like infinity.

It would seem to me that assuming the above to be the case, there can be no boundary or edge to the universe as you have to have something to have a boundary with, and as there is nothing, there is therefore no boundary. However, for the universe to be truly infinite in every sense of the word, then it's geometry has to be open whereby an object travelling through space and not in an orbital trajectory would never return to the start position, or cross it's previous path. The Universe may be curved , but not necessarily curved back upon itself, in other words closed.

If we take the view that the universe is infinite, then it is no surprise that life exists and I am here to write this. In an infinite universe there are infinite possibilities. The fact that life has arisen here means that it is not only likely, but a certainty that it has arisen an infinite number of times in an infinite number of places.

Time for change?

I note at this time of the General Election there is a lot of talk that it is time for a change. Thats what the prevailing mood was in 1997, and look where it got us!!! This is all well and good provided the change is a change for the better, and not just more of the same - or worse.

However, being a person who looks, sees, and observes, I have noticed that while people may well be of this state of mind, its often a different story when the change is something being asked of them, and not someone else. Nothing stays the same for ever. Systems change, Organizations change. Governments change. Companies change. The rules change. Technologies change and the way we have to do things change.

If we are going to move forward and progress in life, in society, and as individuals, then we all have to accept change.

For many people, particularly those set in their ways, change demanded of them comes hard, and difficult to accept. However, for those who embrace it, life is much better and holds out new and unexpected possibilities.

However, at this point I wish to make a "health warning", and it is this: change for the sake of change is negative, counterproductive and often demoralizing. Change which is deliberately brought about should only be for constructive reasons, and anything else is destructive.

Ultimately, change comes to all of us whether we like it or not. Its just a fact of life - embrace it and move on.

Blank Uncertainty on the Page of Life

Until I started typing – a few moments ago – I was staring at a blank OpenOffice page on my laptop. Now, it is no longer blank because I am typing on it.

Mao Tse Tung, one of the most evil people who has ever lived, once commented along the lines that the Chinese people were like a blank sheet of paper with endless possibilities. Of course, being an evil megalomaniac, it would be he who would decide what should be written on the blank sheet. What he wrote was misery, starvation and death for millions of his countrymen.

Enough of Mao. He is not the point. I'm not really sure what the point is. I think that what I might possibly be driving at is that whenever you wake up in the morning, you are in effect presented with a blank page in which an infinity of things are possible. You never actually know what lies ahead. You might think you do. You might know of a number of things which are scheduled to happen on that particular day, but you can never be sure how they are going to work out – because there is an infinite number of possibilities. In this respect, life is a game of chance.

There is therefore no reason to despair, and every reason to despair. Because of the random nature of the fall of events, there is a sense in which we can sit back and look at the passing of each day as a kind of observer. I am observing what I am writing at the moment. I do not know what I am going to write next. I didn't know I was going to write that which I have just written.

I might plan to do things. I might go to work in the morning with a number of things on my mind to be accomplished on that day. It rarely happens that I achieve everything I set out to do. This is not my fault. It is because of the random injection of serendipity which imposes itself upon the day. To really come close to drawing on the sheet of blank paper the things you really want, you have to be ruthlessly focussed, and try and bat away all the distractions. Sometimes you might appear to be a bit rude and abrupt, as you try and pull yourself out of conversations which, while they might be fully justified in themselves, are nevertheless blocking the way to you doing the very things you know you should be doing. And then the phone rings, and its all change again. You never saw that one coming.

This evening I went Ten Pin Bowling. I planned to score high and win my games. However, I only won one of the three games I played and was the worst player in our team tonight. Last week was the reverse. I got one of my highest scores ever. I suppose all I could say was that I knew I was going to bowl some games, but had no idea how the games would turn out.

That, in a nutshell is life.

Booking Creativity

There is a very good book shop where I often go shopping (what else). The reason it is very good is because it is very cheap. When I say it is very cheap, this is no reflection on the quality of the books – many of them are main-stream and can be bought in Waterstones or WH Smiths for a lot more than the mere £2 or so you pay in this shop. We are not talking about remnants here. Being a bit of a cheapskate, though there are exceptions, this appeals to me and I find it very hard to walk by with my wife and accompany her to the lingerie department in John Lewis' where I find it hard not to slit my wrists with boredom!

And so it was that I bought myself a motivational book. As I have only read the first few pages of it, I am not going to reveal the title as you cannot make a proper considered judgement until you have read the whole thing. What I will say is the cover price is £15.99 and I paid £2 for it! Spookily enough, I was browsing this self same book in Waterstones or some such up market book store where it was going for the full price. I was very tempted despite the price, so when I saw it offered at £2 it was a no-brainer.

So, beginning my delving into this heavy-weight tome, I was struck by a comment about one's attitude to work. It was along the lines of are you the sort of person who simply lives for the weekends? This is, I have to say meant to be an inspirational book, so it made me think. Could you hear the gear wheels grinding? Anyway, I am not really one of these people, but I have at times been veering that way. The point is, that if we are to get the most out of life, then we need to encompass the whole of it, and not just the weekends. In fact, if everything revolves around the weekends, and holidays, for that matter, then life is a bit sad to say the least and very unfulfilling. So, it would appear that if we want to find real fulfilment in life, then we have to try to carry all our creativity into every aspect of our lives. This would help to alleviate the Sunday evening blues and replace it with a twing of excited anticipation looking forward to work the next day. I mentioned the word “creativity”, because as human beings we are meant to be creative. So when we go to work, do we actively engage with it and challenge the way things are done and try and come up with new and imaginative ways of working? Does it matter what sort of job you have? Probably not – there are no limitations or monopolies where ideas are concerned.

In short, to make life worthwhile, then worth has to be injected into it, whether it be the bosses' time or our own time. We are meant to be creative, and so a greater sense of fulfilment can be achieved in the workplace by releasing that creativity which is lurking in all of us.

I am now going to stick two pencils up my nose, put a pair of underpants on my head and say “wibble”. I need a coffee.

Remains of the Day

Life is complicated. I find the best way to cope with all the complexities of the day is to try and compartmentalize its different facets. Wait - did I say Day? Yes I did. You have to take life one day at a time and try and achieve as much out of each day as if it were your last.

Today was such a day when I got up and the whole world seemed to be closing in with everything needing doing or sorting. The best solution was a large bowl of "Just Right" cereal followed by a quick tidy up of my immediate surroundings - a recliner settee covered in the half processed and unread detritus of the past working week. Why working week? Because with my wife and I working 8 till 5,  there's not much time for housework or tidying during the week, what with a darling dog bitch boxer pig-dog to walk, feed, water and love - as well as a black cat which keeps crossing our paths, is always hungry, fat, laid back and loves the boxer pig-dog so much she occasionally shares her bed with her. Being incredibly fit people, we also go to the gym more or less regularly. There's nothing like a good work-out, a good sweat in the sauna and a spell in the steam room until you have to leave because you can't breath any more!

And so today, we finally got our act together and did the thing we'd been planning and musing over for many a month - widening our driveway by converting one third of the lawn to a crazy paving type affair with stones in between. This was necessary because we were fed up with the lawn getting driven over, and the driveway being narrow to the point that it was difficult to park the limo so you stepped out onto concrete and not waterlogged lawn or mud. The job took much grunting and digging and wheel-barrowing vast quantities of lawn mud to form an artificial mountain at the bottom of the back garden, 2 trips to the garden centre as we mis-judge the number of bags of stones we needed. It was all worth it. It looks good - at the moment. We finished it in the almost - dark of nightfall, no time to work on it tomorrow.

And so, we felt we deserved the unbridled indolence which followed of crashing out in front of the TV with no feelings of guilt or "I should really be doing" such and such.

I felt the public made the wrong choice for our entry into Eurovision. It should have been Mark, though the twins looked the part - for Eurovision, that is. I liked the song, but didn't feel it was strong or catchy enough to win, not that we will win anyway with all this political block voting so unbeloved of Terry Wogan. And talking of Wogan, I am not sure I want to watch Eurovision any more as he and his witty witticisms were the one thing which made this annual pseudo-musical farce bearable with a smattering of entertainment value.

Thats it - busy day tomorrow - I'm off to bed.

Interstellar Consciousness

In 1969 I laid on my back on the ground and stared up at the stars. I was on the Island of Gan in the Maldive Islands. It was late at night. The sky was clear and the stars sparkled like glistening jewels with the band of the Milky Way dividing the firmament. I was not drunk, but I was more alive, and more conscious than ever.

As I lay, I kept as still as I possibly could and just stared upward, blocking out anything on the fringes of my vision which might distract from the heavenly view. Presently, I began to lose all sensation of the ground underneath me. I felt as if I was floating in space with nothing but the boundless oceans of light years separating me from a billion worlds.

In amongst these worlds, there are, no doubt, planets not so divorced from our own, harbouring life. Of course, the chances of the life forms resembling Terran forms is extremely remote, as our own experience of life on Earth demonstrates the infinity of shape and form and intricacy of what natural selection creates.

Staring straight up I could see towards the heart of the Milky Way, our spiral Galaxy of which we are such a minute speck that if we disappeared the universe would not notice. The interstellar dust clouds block out the view of the actual centre, as much of what is out there is hidden from the unaided gaze. In the centre of the Galaxy is a black hole swallowing up time and space, only to disgorge it again in a kind of plasma at some point billions of years hence. The powers that rule the universe are so great that we could be wiped out in an instant, in the blinking of an eye.

And then, you turn yours eyes from the stars and back onto the home planet. The planet we are systematically destroying. The life forms we are wiping out. The misery and oppression our own species inflicts upon itself. Yet, there will come a time when the universe will swallow us up, and it will be as if we were never here. We are not important. We only think we are. We have yet to grow up.

Reaching out into space and being at one with the cosmos is the ultimate reality check. That is where we will eventually find ourself and the meaning of existance.

Change and feeling

I feel the urge to write, though I'm not sure what. I feel as if my life is taking a radical change in direction, and things will never be the same again. There are so many things I want to do with my life, and I am more and more conscious of how rapidly life is passing me by. My creative instincts are taking over, and I feel the need to create much because it is a part of what makes us human.

I have a great need of beauty. music, countryside, landscape. That's probably why I love photography so much. Its a chance to capture beauty, and preserve it to ponder over later, and for future generations. The power of music and wonderful images together can stir the soul, inspire, and even change lives. I feel my life being changed..irrevocably. I am changing, growing older, moving on, dying, transforming, loving........and feeling sadness.

I guess I'm feeling somewhat doleful, or even maudlin. I have a warm glow of anticipation, and yet a sadness that the things and people I love in life are changing and disappearing. Its important to hang onto the things and people who you love. Its important to use your creative talents to good effect,. Its important to be truthful and keep a sense of proportion and humour. Its also important to realise that no matter how bad life might seem at the moment, it will change - but not always for the better. Even so, I cope.