Why do we have an appendix just like the Oxford dictionary and does this mean that I am a dictionary?

Aristotle invented logic but wouldn’t you have to know what it was before you could invent it?

The truth must have been that Aristotle gave a name to a certain use of language which already existed.

It seems very simple as in the argument

If all  A are B

And if this is an A

Then it must be a B.

It doesn’t seem very productive does it?

I am jealous of the Greeks because they could invent things that were quite simple since nothing else have been invented previously or at least nothing else have been given a name

So in a sense they were like gods because God invented the world or by naming the different parts.

So naming is extremely important

I’m frequently impressed when I remember sayings adages, things my mother used to say which are often related to bodily states

When I couldn’t find my glasses I was searching nervously or frantically and only found them when I gave up…..

I remembered my mother saying

You can’t see, for looking.

This is very interesting because like language itself and the developments from it these are coming from the lips of ordinary People. And they’re recognisinhg something which is only in the last hundred years been scientifically described I believe.

There are two kinds of seeing

Very focussed seeing.. narrow purposive vision… This is when we’ve got some thing which our mind is pinned on to and we ignore everything else apart from that very narrow bit of the world that we see very intently. We can also switch into this when we’re under stress, severe stress sometimes.

Then there is the way that the owl must look when it is looking from the tree for something to eat

Wide vision where you’re not focusing sharply on any individual spot in the landscape but your eyes widened and you’re scanning the whole at once. When the owl sees something then he or she must switch into the sharply focused mode and swoop down to catch the little beast that was spotted so the owl could have something to eat

I think artists also will be familiar with this. The eye muscles have to be relaxed which  will happen spontaneously when necessary or sometimes you can do it deliberately. There are breathing techniques and relaxation techniques which can switch into this mode

Going back to the adage

You can’t see for looking.

See refers to broad vision with the eye muscles relaxed

And ,cleverly, looking refers to sharply focused vision

So if you’re looking too hard you can’t see

Well it took me 48 hours to find my glasses

I had taken them off in my bedroom to put some sunscreen on my face and then I couldn’t find them

I was looking in the bedroom for them

But when I found them they were downstairs in the sitting room

I wasn’t even trying to find them them and I’d given up completely

My old ones are adequate for most purposes but nevertheless if you if you wear glasses you know that having the ones you’re used to especially for reading is really very important and some of us feel incomplete without them.

I’m always grateful when I find something and I often look up at the sky and say

Thank you.

And thank you to all those human beings that came before us and left us wisdom in these sayings. And this was long before they were schools and universities and other learning organizations.

I sometimes think that we are getting less intelligence as time goes on.

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The prophet Elijah heard the still small voice when he was hiding in a cave on top of Mount Sinai

This was during the iron age which is a long time ago.

But when I was thinking about the story one day I suddenly felt a strong kinship with this person who is on the mountain fleeing from Queen Jezebel who wanted to kill him and then he heard the voice of God speaking to him but it was not a strong or violent or  loud voice. No only when the tempest had gone and the fires had gone and everything was quiet that he heard the still small voice which is sometimes translated as a whisper.

I am not particularly religious in the conventional sense but ever since I heard this story possibly when I was a child I’ve always liked the idea because I think when we create things or when we looking for answers to a problem we often have to be patient and quiet so that we can hear this little voice inside us and I don’t think it’s just  the voice of conscience. I think it’s the Voice of creativity

When someone is brought up in a very religious home  it is quite frequent that they have a cruel conscience.

And one which does not whisper but shouts at them if they do the slightest thing wrong that they’re become afraid they’re going to go to hell and are very frightened

That kind of a conscience does not lead to creativity.

Because there’s another voice inside us just as there are other voices in our dreams and our day dreams. Are these little whispers helpful ideas or guidance on the path we are following that’s what I think they are.

But there is one important condition… that if we use them for egocentric purposes that the result will be no good. In other words the condition is selflessness. Just not egocentric if we can manage that but we can try not to do it things purely for self gratification or to become famous or wealthy or dominating

Our world is very noisy now ;once I went into a hairdressers and it was very quiet and peaceful so I was pleased but while my hair was being done the hairdresser apologised for the lack of music because something was broken in their system. When I said I preferred it like that she was very surprised.

It’s almost as if we’re trying to drown out the voice of God or whatever you like to interpret these things as.

And when we are alone we put the radio on or the television or we look on the computer for something to interest us.

I wonder how if we’re starting from the beginning how would we be able to encourage our inner self and begin to develop this little voice which helps us and to learn to hear it when it speaks. And although it’s quiet like a whisper it doesn’t mean it’s not important.

But it’s not going to use force on you because if you’re forced to do something or to listen to something you do not wish to cooperate. I would say that’s true for the majority of people. But if someone whispered the suggestion in your ear you’re much more likely to pay attention and to think about it as long as you’ve got a bit of time and space

And that’s the problem now for many people just trying to get a house pay the rent or more with have enough money for food and build and to encourage your children it’s very difficult even with our modern conveniences

Expect you’ve noticed that once we get a new machine like a washing machine instead of using it to help us we create more work by deciding that we can wash everyone’s clothes more frequently and that will take up the time that you saved

We have to keep some of that time for ourself even if other people think we’re being selfish. It may only be half an hour. But if we have half an hour every day quietly listening and waiting gradually we will change and notice things that we didn’t notice before.

This is what I have come to believe over the years and I have come across other people with the same perception.

It won’t make you famous or rich but it might make you more happy than you were or you may feel that you have to do something that might be difficult but that is your journey that is your vocation

Probably you won’t be happy unless you do that. But everybody’s got to find their own way. So if you don’t like what I say or you disagree with me that is very good.

Our opponents are our co-creators.

I’m not sure who said that but I think there’s a lot of truth in it.

Our opponents are not enemies.

I wish that more people believed that

My dear sister was sometimes critical of me because I have a lot of books. When I was ill someone decided to tidy it up and took my books out of the bookshelves: put them into boxes in a different room and told me,Your sitting room looks a lot better now that it’s  in order. Then I was very distressed even angry. I couldn’t find anything.

That’s the conventional view that a room which is half empty with polished furniture and neat sofas and chairs is the perfect home however order to me is not about constant tidying up to the extent that you are not allowed to eat drink or almost breathe in someone’s living room because they’ve just cleaned it.

And of course I knew where all my books were and I knew where all  my art books were

And I knew where the cookery boots were as well but it’s taken me a long time to find the books I need again.

I’m not finished the job yet.

So the deeper sort of order  is where the owner of the room or the house has an internal map of where everything is which may not be apparent to a stranger or even to a sister.

Interestingly, there is an article today in some of the newspapers saying that experts have found that the desire for total orderliness and minimalism is driving some people crazy when they’re already busy with looking after their family working in a demanding job or a boring job or tiring job.

Because being judged is very painful and if you feel that everybody who comes to visit you is going to judge you on the number of possessions you have and the state of your house then you won’t be able to relax and enjoy  their company

I expect one should follow the rule of

Do not take it personally

Yes we need a certain amount of order of the traditional kind. We need to wash our clothes we need to cook and wash up we need to make beds even to change the sheets but where’d you draw the line,?

I must confess that I was shocked when I was a student living in a bed sitter when one of my friends said she only changed sheets once a month.

At that point I was still doing what my mother did which was changing one sheet following the rule of top to bottom. As I got older and more tired and realized that if you are a clean person you might not need to change your sheets every week then that’s what I did… change them once a fortnight. And it’s nice to have clean sheets. So it’s a pleasure which might be worthwhile doing more frequently as long as it doesn’t make you ill and tired

In any case all the cleaning and tidying and washing used to be regarded as women’s work and of no value.

But in fact this work is of value despite my criticism of people who are over orderly and over  clean.

As I said to my sister,

A rich person like the author Michael Frayne can afford a big house with lots of bookshelves and so tidiness to some extent is linked with money

For older people and  thisr with asthma and other chronic conditions it may be very important to have a dust free and very clean home.

But it should not be regarded as a moral necessity.

I don’t know why some people feel impelled to judge others constantly.

Someone in my family criticizes another person if they get new furniture but really it wasn’t their business

It wasn’t causing any trouble financially so if this person wanted to have any furniture every five years or 10 years rather than waiing till it fell apart then to me that seemed a reasonable choice because life is not very long and if you don’t like your furniture to get worn out and dirty and you want to get a new sofa or whatever that is your choice and you are entitled to it if you can afford it. And that’s one of the problems about poverty that peopke are not only short of food and heating bills are frightening but also they they have no choice about whether they want a new bed or a fridge or freezer because they can’t afford it anywhere even if it’s necessary.

There’s a lot of pain in being poor and it is not acknowledged by many of us. And it’s not surprising that mental illness is more common in the poor.

And if you were a powerful person people will not criticize you for being untidy because they’ll be frightened or you.

Still I would not wish to live the way that I the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch lived because you have to recognize that if your floor is covered in rubbish you are at risk of getting rodents etc

So I’m not advocating for complete ignoring of dirt and mess but saying that having a few piles of books in your living room it’s not really something to be ashamed of.

If I went into a room like that I would long to look at the books and be interested in the person.

I suppose wevwomen don’t always 1 realise what stress we are suffering instead we feel guilty because our home is not perfect like the ones on the television programs we’ve been having recently.

Since my home was tidied I found it much harder to write because my hands reach out for a book in a shelf but it’s not there. I spend time trying to find it and its fellow books which used to be so near me all the time.

If you want to help another person don’t assume that they want their house to be tidy in the way your house is tidy. That they want all their kitchen utensils in a jug on the windowsill because what looks disorderly to one person is actually the order of somebody else. That’s somebody else is different from you. That they are entitled to their own way of life

And also you may need to tell them that you cannot just borrow books from the public library because they do not have books that are only readable by a small group of people about things like philosophy history poetry music art. It’s become even more true in recent years when governments have cut back on money and the local council is running out of money and so they closed the libraries or they buy fewer books.

And if you want the book as a reference book as you might do if you are a writer or an academic or an artist then borrowing it from the public library is not really sufficient. That’s why people steal sometimes. And that’s selfish but on the other hand is understandable if you can’t afford to buy something that you really need badly.

Extract from the book by Marion Milner

An experiment in leisure

But if man’s salvation depended on his capacity to see the facts, both about himself and the outside world, and if the poets were the pioneers in this, what were the conditions under which poetry could grow? For a long time I had been puzzled by the continual recurrence of images from the Bible in my thinking. Then I find this note in my diary: Just supposing this is what the Gospel story is partly about? All this year it’s been growing in my mind, the possibility that the Gospel story is concerned, not with morals at all, not with what one OUGHT to do, because someone (God, father). expects it of you, but with practical rules for creative thinking, a handbook for the process of perceiving the facts of one’s own experience – and, of course, in this sense, with ‘salvation’, for it is ignorance and blindness which lead to the City of Destruction. And the central truth, is it that only by a repeated giving up of every kind of purpose, plunging into the void, voluntary dying upon the cross, can the human spirit grow, and achieve those progressive fusings of isolated bits of experience which we call wisdom, truth?