Fate - Freedom, Buddha, Einstein, Mum

I love Radio 4. I mean it.

This isn't an emotion lightly held, I really love radio 4 ( 'cept Today which I can not abide. I don't want "ner ner ner, got you now! argument in my bedroom as I wake up)

I love it because it gives me so much STUFF to play with. I learn so much from it. Time in the car isn't wasted, its either think time, sing time, or listen to the Radio. If I tune in to Radio 4 there, I am highly likely to be given something to think about and take away something to learn, or enjoy, better still and usually, both.

On Radio 4 one morning this week, a debate about America and slavery and freedom, amongst other things delivered this quote from an African American

"You are free once you take responsibility for your fate. "

I loved that phrase. It made such sense to me (who has always had luxury of freedom of movement) Immediately I heard the last lines of a poem by Colonel Lovelace, introduced to me by Mother.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

It's all in a state of mind, which brought to the fore another poem from my childhood and endless debates with my Mother, who introduced me early to the concept of the discipline of mind, and another poem the last verse of which is this:

Life battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can

Certain amount of audacity in that isn't there, a sense of belief without arrogance. Tricky balance.

So I'd had a happy for me, meander around my past and thoughts and beliefs I hold or don't or have learned, when literally as I came to a Stop at a give way junction some miles later my reverie was halted, with an astounding thought from the side.

You are free once you take responsibility for your fate

So going back to the quote I stopped listening to my thoughts and just mused on the phrase. I thought ( and still think) that I understood what the speaker meant. And yet for it to be meaningful in the way I was finding it meaningful, I had assumed a very specific definition of Fate. Not the definition that events are inevitable, but a wider definition.

So not this meaning:
destiny: an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future

but something nearer to this,
"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. ( Buddha)

Or possibly beyond it somewhere.

If I hadn't already had a (believed) shared understanding of what Fate is, I could not have accepted the statement he made. How often do we assume a shared understanding, when there isn't one, because we use the same words. And how often is there a shared understanding, left unknown - because the descriptions are different.

This took me somewhere else which I couldn't quite grasp whilst navigating roundabouts and an angry driver. And then I arrived at the office.

Saved by work!

Thanks for the thinking, Mum.( and Radio 4)

....

Looking for alternative definitions of Fate this evening I happened upon this :

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations. ( Albert Einstein)

Wave harvest

They both started out not really knowing where they were going but up for a challenge. Then it was fun but hard then it was hard but rewarding with some fun. The journey wasn't learning about the music.

"I wouldn't mind winning and I wouldn't have been able to say that before this. Its all right to say that I want to take it to the end and see where I can go"

"I've won anyway cos I've learned so much."

He wasn't robbed.

A delight for me was Maxim Vengerov replacing at short notice one of the other judges... Ha! big bonus. Given up playing now, he teaches and conducts. Shame, sublime.
About 12 years ago he was in an advert that was really only shown in cinemas. I forget what the product was, it might have been Coco from Chanel.

Anyway he was in the Waves on an amazing beach. playing a bit of Beethoven'sViolin Concerto as a serenade. Obviously this advert was made JUST for me.

Maxim also needed a few more greens as a child - just a little bit short.... perhaps I am picky

Another amusement was the Radetzki March. (audience conducting here too) This is ancestral whistling music for Ocelot calling and it works a treat every time - sustained rhythmic high notes.

They are compelled. Hard to whistle when laughing... worth the concentration to see their consternation, strong little wills.. Very Funny



Which is just as well, because tomorrow I may be pressed with my chin against my knees curled up tight in a localised black hole.

Oh well . It's worse than that its Physics Jim!


tra la la

Waving and NOT (quite) drowning

Dancing down the aisle gleeful because he was conducting Opera!! He lost the violins, twice in similar phrasing but he caught them again. Obviously this was Goldie, my new hero. And he wasn't pleased with his performance, rightly.

Everyone tonight taking part was very serious about what they were doing. They were having fun in that "eeek this is scaring me" kind of way, being brave, by staying with it. This hasn't been about comfort zones, certainly not the last two weeks. Their comfort zones are about 4 valley's behind the mountain range they found themselves in and no time to worry about the height, BREATHING has become a technical skill.

The quality of the feedback in this programme has been a masterclass in it's own right. He knew what he did and was able to appraise it. The judges were straight, respectful, encouraging and wanting the best. The mentors were not fluffy either, if they thought more could be given they said so. They too were competitive on behalf of their person and supportive and real.

Right at the beginning the weak spot of the entire programme Clive Anderson, asked the two opera singers firstly what they wanted from a conductor, the response: sympathy, passion, flair, inspiration.

Goldie was saved by the orchestra as was Jane Asher...

OOOh next week...

A dream reality

Whilst I am by no means an addict of TV, I can and do go weeks, sometimes even months without watching it, I have also been known to change plans if I am taken with something

Tonight, flicking, whilst waiting for the kettle, I came across Maestro on BBC2. It's about celebrities of all shapes and sizes learning to conduct an orchestra. It's wonderful!

I found myself smiling all the way through the programme. Even doing something that was strange for each of them, their real personality shone through. They all did it their way. So Jane Asher came across as a serious perfectionist, Jon Snow as mad etc.

The one I am now rooting for ( though I guess others could take my fancy next week) is Goldie.

He was in a different class today. Even though he can't read music, he found his strategy to track the patterns on an orchestral score, listened to his mentor and put himself completely into the job at hand. No half measures, no staying in the safe lands, but risking himself and being himself.

I actually didn't see who was conducting when I heard the music for the first 30 seconds, engaged as I was in an activity involving pain killers and a loud and not very pleased cat.

BUT the orchestra sounded completely different, the audience enjoyed it and the orchestra clearly did too as they responded to him. What a feedback mechanism an orchestra is!

And he maintained it too.

Playing in an orchestra is the ultimate in team playing I think, even better because it doesnt involve sport. HA! But the adrenalin rush of a concert and a hard piece is hard to beat..and I am remembering this as if it was yesterday, rather then decades ago.. THRILLING

The conductor's role is an interesting one. All the musicians are excellent in their own right. They all choose to play together as together they can achieve more. Good orchestras can and do manage without one. Another, usually a violinist, may step in and lead from the front, or a soloist likewise can operate in this way too.

They are no mere metronomes either, as their interpretation of the music and understanding of the musicians adds a dimension that the composer can only guess at on writing.

It is generative. And when it works, magic happens. Some people are never lucky enough to experiencec this. I see it often at work, and its equally thrilling.

This is one reality show I would love to take part in. What luxury.

I already know what I will be doing the same time next week. The cat will get her medicine early and lump it

My Heroes: Two have died but one still lives

Heroes, you come across in books. I have my real life heroes, people who have appeared, taught me something ( whether I knew I need to learn, or was prepared to learn it, is ANOTHER matter) and in the process taught me something else. They are unsung to the world at large and it is probable in most cases that they are unaware that to me they are heroes. Heroes they are, and they are all around me.


Then there are the ones from books who are real too. A long time ago I read Good to Great by Jim Collins, about companies that get good and sustain it over years and years and years to become great companies. He described a number of factors that were common to the handful of companies he and his research team decided passed the entry bar they had set for a great company. One of these characteristics was labelled the Stockdale Paradox (I am told it isn't a paradox, but I am not a scientist and therefore the label works well enough for me)

A description of this can be found http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/goodToGreat/ch4_p83.html

He was a flier, tortured and held captive, for years during the Vietnam War.

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Admiral Stockdale
You do need to have faith that you will prevail AND you do need to face the current situation as it is, not as you would like it to be, but as it is. The faith supports a personal resilience the brutal facts support decisions about how you can deal with your current situation.

To me this seemed second nature. Use of the word Brutal seems highly militaristic, but he was an Admiral and they were truly brutal facts that he was facing. Maybe the use of the word Brutal was a function of the time in which he was operating too, and also a flavour of the time Jim Collins was writing his book and the companies he identified, living in the land of " it's a jungle out there" and operating from a mindset of siege rather than opportunity, retaining for oneself, rather than sharing with others too.

The Admiral had an effect on me and I wanted to find out more about him. Web is full of stuff, and Wikipedia is a good start and his own website.

One very Admirable, Admiral.

Cecil Lewis author of Sagittarius Rising and one of the founders of the BBC

I picked up a book a long time ago in a bookstore at a railway station because I was bound for a long journey. I picked the book by its name! A whimsical choice that took me completely by surprise. It is about the exploits of a WWI flying ace. It has the most breathtaking and real descriptions of flying I have ever read, which has inspired a goal - not yet embarked on - to learn to fly. Literal by the "seat of yer pants stuff" for which you'd need a cool head and a sense of adventure. He joined the RFC from school underage and survived the war becoming an ACE in the process. There are lots of reviews of the book on the net, Amazon has most. The best parts where he really comes alive in his writing, are the adventures and descriptions from above. Though he clearly approaches and experiences life as a series of exploits and adventures, his element is the air and his place is in the sky at speed, maneuvering.

He was an interesting person to read about, as seen from the centre of his own universe.


As with Admiral Stockdale above, after reading about him I wished I really could have met him. But I had prematurely decided on both their deaths, and was and am very frustrated with myself when I read later at different times obviously,that they HAD just died!!!


Monty Roberts - The Horse Whisperer man

Breaking in horses, is the way that for hundreds of years worldwide man has been able to subjugate and control horses. Break is a brutal word. Monty Roberts is not alone in believing there has to be a better way, but he probably is the most famous. His life is one of contention, he maintains he was abused as a child by his father and his siblings maintain that he was not. He believes he has an affinity with horses and his methods are improving the lives of horses (and people worldwide)

He starts from a premise of respect, that the animal has to choose to work with you and that choice does not come about through coercion. Messages might be very clear about consequences, but the consequences are clear and accepted by both sides. By choosing the horse maintains dignity and his own spirit. He has written many books, and he, or a ghost writer, writes in a simple voice, old fashioned, homespun - nevertheless sincere.

This respect for the intelligence and sense of the horse has saved his life at times, when the whisperer listens to the horse and is guided by their insight.

He is tough, he thinks, ultimately he is kind. He is confronting the brutal facts and has faith that he will prevail, he is living in his element and having an adventure.

A few years back I was standing outside a bookshop and noticed a sign that read he was giving a reading and signing books that evening at a local hall. I stared and stared at that notice for probably several minutes because I really could not believe my eyes.

I was not disappointed.

Oh to live in the canopy!

Much to the annoyance of others I like the trees to grow tall in my garden.

When I look out of my bedroom window at the dawn rising or at the antics of the weather that day, I do so through the veil of branches from a Flowering Cherry Tree. When I hear the rain at night I hear is as it bounces off the leaves, or patters on the twigs or slides down the branches for a drip drop rhythm onto the ground below. I could tune that out and hear the water in the guttering, or tipping against the roof, but hearing the rain through the leaves is the best way for me. The sound is dampened, its percussive nature given more subtlety and variety simply because it is not as harsh.

I could live in the trees (provided I could have regular hot baths and access to reading material) I like the green light, I like the play of shade. I love the fact that one part of the tree can be completely still and another experience some turbulence, probably external, but who can know.

Today I saw something close up that I know happens but you can not see from the ground.
A rather determined blackbird had decided he wanted something. As I looked out the window, at eye height in the trees was I with a shiny healthy blackbird. In his sunshine yellow beak against the green leaves he had a cherry. This Cherry was almost as big as his head, glowing like his shining beady eye, and was a glossy scarlet red, plump and full of juiciness. He held it firmly and was apparently standing in the midst of a large leaf, and looked all around him - turned to me, barely gave me a second thought (maybe he calculated that the chances of me leaping into the branches for his fruit were too slight to worry about). He was both very pleased with himself and also prepared to protect his booty. His beak for a swag bag, he turned once more and despite the theft of it's fruit, left swiftly without disturbing the tree

Brilliant

The writers of Dr Who understand my Dad's idea of heaven

My Father had his own views of how Heaven would be - I am trying to recall what tense he used and I think he was ambiguous . He had no doubts about it's existence but that it was centred around the person. It made sense to me instantly, far more believable then an old man up in the clouds. It wasn't hard to accommodate it along with all the other things I was believing at the time. This belief has lasted. As a belief it is one I am fond of. When Heaven happens is another matter, I think my Dad was talking about after death but I am not certain he was. He was, I suspect musing out loud and he was more interested in making me think, rather then being attached to what I did think (well not about this!).

The last few weeks I have finally got back into Dr Who. I left it emotionally more then a decade or two back. Accidentally I saw the Forest of the Dead and the Library and I was utterly entranced. I have seen subsequent episodes now which have all been good but this was in a different league. I read A LOT and I know what I likes! I don't have any pretensions of being literary, but this shone out as the most exquisite writing, scripting I have seen for a very long time. Sometimes even when you are not an expert in something but you come across excellence, you notice it. It shouts at you somewhere and sometimes there is a physical reaction, like a tingling or goosebumps. I knew nothing about Ice Dancing, would occasionally watch late at night mainly for the background music and then saw Torvill and Dean and knew they were in a different league. I have seen some nice furniture and then touched a craftsman made antique and KNOWN it's excellence without reference to a text book. These episodes did that to me. There were one or two lines which made my heart miss a beat.

The thing that entranced me though, was something else. It was a connection, a voice from the past or across the great mists of time. The thing I LOVED was the idea that a Father had placed his ill child in a library so that she wouldn't be bored/lonely and could continue to grow.