The world of self-help by Oliver Burkeman

Written word holds its unique power of convincing people that what has been written in a book or in a newspaper is true – which is not always a case. Sometimes written word can be, unintentionally or not and for whatever reason – misleading or even harmful. When subject of enquiry is practical then the question becomes urgent.

Millions of people seek advice in various self-help books every day. In his book Oliver Burkeman takes his readers into a journey to the fertile land of self-help genre and tries to sieve good, genuinely helpful tips from bad ones. HELP!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done is an impressive work, written with personal passion, journalistic inquisitiveness and scientific scepticism and respect for experimental data. The position with no doubt worth to read – you may find information you need, and the book itself may set you free - if you happened tobe dependant from influence of some questionable self-help gurus and their ideas. 
MG

Binge drinking

The Regional Lifetstyles Survey, 2005

It is quite scary to see hundreds of drunk people on the main streets of British cities on Friday and Saturday nights - especially young people. Certainly, for people holding more conservative and traditional views it must be completley despicable.

Of course, this custom harms the society in many ways. Association of a good time with consumption of alcohol certainly results in higher risk of addiction and other alcohol related problems. And costs are enormous. According to wikipedia, "binge drinking costs the UK economy approximately £20 billion a year; 17 million working days are estimated to be lost due to hangovers and drink-related illness each year. The cost of binge drinking to employers is estimated to be £6.4 billion and the cost per year of alcohol harm is estimated to cost the National Health Service £2.7 billion." 

MG

Paradox

Human race try to preserve its sense of existence through myths, beliefs, religions and ideologies. Whole societies and their particular members give themselves identities through holding various ideas, various beliefs.  Since the dawn of humanity people tell themselves stories about spirits, immortal soul, about going to heaven after death. All of that in order to gain identity, to gain meaning, to preserve sense of existence, to deny death. And yet the same ideas, the same memes often prompt violence and bring death. And that is a paradox

MG

Contemplating self

Interestingly enough we rarely contemplate certain conditions of our existence. The obvious reason:  we are mortal beings and we try to preserve ourselves. But we do not fear just death. We find uneasy confronting our very selves.

Have you ever thought about your own consciousness as an artificial, existing only in your own mind concept? Which has started emerging gradually when you were a small child? Which has been changing ever since?

Although we think we are who we are (whatever it means) we are different from whom we were a year, a month or a day ago. Who we are at any given moment depends from many factors including things like: where we are, with whom and what we are doing. Even what we have eaten matters.

That is a source of our loneliness – our idea of ourselves lives in our own minds and we are only able to share just a part of it with other people – often in a vague manner.

Often we are able to spot nervous attempts of our minds to do something, to think about something during meditation.

The phenomenon of experiencing our own existence is the source of our culture with all our myths and beliefs; it is a reason for our civilisation and is a source of our personal dramas.  

MG

The four Horsemen of New Atheism

What is New Atheism? According to wiki: 

“...a 21st century movement in atheism. (...) supporters of the New Atheism movement are hardline critics of religion. They state that atheism, backed by recent scientific advancement, has reached the point where it is time to take a far less accommodating attitude toward religion, superstition, and religious fanaticism than had been extended by some atheists and secularists. According to CNN, "What the New Atheists share is a belief that religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises."

Richard Dawkins

Well known scientist and militiant atheist

Religion is bad and outdated - we all should become militant atheists (at least people who know better - scientists)

Creationism has nothing to offer, nothing even close to the beauty of Darwinian Theory of Evolution

Children should be protected from brainwashing.

Richard smites religion in many of his bestselling books

Christopher Hitchens

God is not great – in fact, religion poisons everything

The real axis of evil is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – the tree desert dogmas

Organized religion is the main source of hatred in the world;

Religion tends to be violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children

Sam Harris

Let’s take morality from religion

Religions offer answers to moral questions but often they have wrong answers

Science can answer moral questions

We don’t scrutinise religion enough - acceptance and respect for 'moderate' beliefs provide cover for fundamentalists and fanatics who blow themselves up

Besides, let's don't call ourselves atheists: nobody calls himself non-astrologer to distinguish himself from astrologers, so why do we call ourselves a-theists?

Sam is a spiritual atheist – “Compassion, awe, devotion and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have”; he studied meditation with Hindu and Buddhist teachers, he organises retreats for scientists

Daniel Dennett

Religion is an excuse to many people to stop thinking- and that is a real danger

Of course, it is rather rude to say to grandma there is no god

Should we be upfront? I’d rather disagree on this point with Richard Dawkins

Some people need help to be moral and let's don't deny it to them. They need religion as a moral Viagra.

Daniel is a cognitive scientist whose research centres on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

The above description is far from being complete. All four horsemen are authors of influential books who took part in many public debates. There is much more to it - look it up on the net.

MG

The mechanical beast from Nantes

The mechanical animal, currently the main atraction of The Machines of the Isle of Nantes (Les Machines de l'île) resembles rather a mumakil from Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" than an elaphant. Weighting 45 tons of wood and steel, measuring 12 meters high and 8 meters wide, it can take up to 49 passangers for a 45-minute walk. It can not charge like a mumakil - it walks rather slowly, but it still provides great fun for kids, roaring and spreading some water from its trunk. 

More is coming to the Isle of Nantes. Soon the ambitious project of an enourmous The Marine World Carrousel will feature 35 different fantasitc creatures and marine vehicles - and you will be able to ride on/insinde of them and even operate some of their movements. All inspired by the imaginary of a famous Nantais Jules Verne, and the mechanical genius of Leonardo da Vinci.

MG

Going camping

OR

?

If you watch a lot of movies but you have never been camping, you may be afraid of taking a wrong turn and being chased and hunted down in the forest by cannibalistic serial murderers. 

The truth is different though. Clayton and Jackie regularly organise camping and so far nobody has been eaten and everybody safely came back. Moreover, going camping turns out to be a great experience and a lot of fun. Without a doubt it proves Jackie and Clayton have always been taking right turns – at least so far. 

Camping is different. People who went camping often say they did not expect it would be actually that good. In these days people live next to each other but barely know their neighbours. Going camping changes that. People enjoy conversations they had never thought they would enjoy. Strangers living next to you turn out to be friends giving you a helpful hand. 

Camping turns out to be a memorable, good experience. Never been camping and want a piece of advice? Here you are: You don’t have to be a scout. Don’t be a pussy. Go camping.

MG

Three ways of understanding the world

In order to survive we humans had to create models explaining world around us and we have at least three ways of doing it:

• Through beliefs - creating mythical explanations, something to believe in without logical and critical thinking – for example various myths, legends, prophecies, religions and faiths
• Through paradigms, philosophy, analogy to things that exist; an attempt to create a plausible explanation how things might be working through some sort of rather logical thinking, sometimes clearly providing models which seems to be not provable experimentally or cannot be called science and which may be an expression of some sort of convictions or assumptions about the reality through the prism of existing culture – for example in the past mechanistic paradigm of the universe, or more recent concept of Spiral Dynamics which gives some sort of roadmap to humankind development.
• Through science, through scientific method – where concepts are scrutinised and facts needs to be proven scientifically; the highest achievement which have changed the world we are living in.

MG

It’s Organic!

‘It’s truly organic’ says Gary answering to my question. ‘I used just a little salt against pests but there is nothing chemical here – maybe apart of rain. Rain – only that could be chemical’ he laughs.

I am having a quickie interview with Gary for the Magazine in regard of his role as a Garden’s Guardian and Gardener. We are both looking at the lavish, promising plants. In a few months dark and neglected, bushy and full of nettles backyard changed its appearance into a neat and clear pampered garden with a place for BBQ. Definitely, it’s a “Wow!” moment for me. Apparently, vegetables do not originate from supermarkets but grow in fields and gardens. I have a feeling of approaching a mystery of nature, which, myself being a city boy, I might be never able to fully fathom.

‘When did you start this garden?’ I ask

‘Well, it started in February with Mark who had lived here. I had been helping him.’ Gary explains. ‘When he moved out I took it over. And now – look!’ He beams proudly.

‘It’s wonderful! Did you have some help from the staff?’ I want to know.

‘Yes, Steve helped quite a lot. At the beginning he was running this project, I mean, he was responsible for it as a staff member.’

‘What about other clients?

‘Some of them helped me as well. For example, together with John we weeded the garden.’

‘Great. So what do we have here?’ I ask

‘Tomatoes, carrots, Brassica oleracea, baobab…’
'Brassica oleracea?'
'Yes, Brassica oleracea, you know, cabbage'

I decide it is a time for a joke. ‘And where do you grow marihuana?’ I ask.

‘Oh no, there is nothing like that here’ Gary smiles. ‘Only good, legal stuff; I mean, plants.’

‘You put quite a bit of effort into this garden. How do you feel about it? ‘

‘You know, it was the first time in my life when I have done something like that. It’s very therapeutic. It feels different when you take care of garden and watch how it grows. And it is not just for me but also for others. We had a barbecue here already at least once. It feels great and it has been very helpful, very therapeutic.’

MG

The last Harry Potter is not pagan after all

Attention: Spoilers ahead!

After watching “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” I came to the conclusion that the last Harry Potter is not a pagan book - assuming the movie follows the book closely. It looks like J.K Rowling followed C.S. Lewis with at least one of the main Christian themes: sacrificial death and resurrection. 

In the New Testament it happens to Jesus, in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” it happens to Aslan, in “Deathly Hallows” part 2 it happens to Harry Potter himself. Let’s add those deaths happen not accidentally – they are fulfilment of spiritual rules of the game, of old prophecies; they were pre-planned necessity.

To defeat Voldemort who symbolises evil and death Harry Potter must die. Only through this ordeal he can save his friends and defeat Valdemort. Harry goes to meet his bitter end in the forest and dies from Voldemort’s hand. Being dead Harry finds himself in a limbo – a white place somehow resembling the King’s Cross station and he has a choice (compare with Neo being stuck between the worlds at the beginning of “The Matrix: Revolutions”). It turns out a part of Valdemort’s soul lived within Harry Potter. Through his death Harry can be purified and then resurrected which leads to final defeat of Valdemort who has lost his powers. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” is mature, powerful, very well acted and definitely worth watching. 

MG