time

the past can only be remembered now

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

Reflecting on your day, hundreds, or thousands, of things happen. In fact each day of your life this is so. This moment, Now, is therefore only one of many, many moments.

Yet this moment, Now, is as it is. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise.

Moments of the past are merely as we recall them. Moments of the future are dreams, creations of thought. The division of moments, the division of our lives, into past, present and future is mind-made and ultimately illusory. The past can only be remembered, now. The future only imagined, now. So in essence all there is that is real, is Now.

When your attention moves into the Now, there is space, clarity, simplicity, peace. There is also an alertness.
Many people confuse Now, with what happens in the Now. But the Now is deeper than what happens in it. It is the very space in which it happens.

This moment, Now, is the one constant truth. No matter what happens, no matter what changes, one thing is certain … it is always Now.

Makes you wonder why we dwell on the past and worry for the future, doesn’t it? Wasting Now.

Don’t waste it, embrace it. Now.

a hanging emotion?

~ steve.ridgley ~ 2 Comments

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I’ve just been overtaken.

Overtaken on a blind bend.

The car in question then overtook the car in front, also with insufficient visibility for the manoeuvre.

The area and time of day tell me that half a mile ahead there will be a substantial queue at a roundabout. I know this because I am familiar with the area.

The driver in question had earlier been waiting in a side turning and they had slotted in behind me as I had passed them. The side turning I also know would suggest they live or work in the area, so would be familiar too with the upcoming queue.

What motivates us to get ahead? To take risks to get in front?

Is it time? Lateness or a need to get somewhere quickly?

Competitiveness? A desire to win?

Peacock syndrome? A need to show personal power; to showcase capability or self? Look at me, look at my car, look at our potential?

Or maybe it’s a hanging emotion? Maybe work or life had recently delivered an emotional experience leaving the driver with frustration or anger or some other feeling? Maybe the thrill of speed, the rush of risk is a venting of a hanging emotion?

Whatever the reason, I hope they live long enough to enjoy what was a nice car.

 

 

losing things

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

losing things

Do you lose things?

I do.  Keys are a favourite. Today I lost my phone – only for half an hour.

Sometimes I lose things that aren’t actually things.  Like losing my way, or losing interest. I seem to lose time too.  I look up and realise I seem to have lost several hours.

How do you lose something that doesn’t physically exist?

Ultimately though, these are all recoverable, or when push comes to shove, they don’t really matter. They can be replaced, recovered or simply forgotten about.  We move on.

Don’t ever lose your curiosity though. Or your sense of fun. Or your compassion for yourself. Or your sense of who you are. Or your sense of belonging. Or your sense of value, or place in this world. Or your humanity. Don’t lose yourself.

These are harder to recover from. Hold them close. Guard them devotedly.

the false memory in reflection

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment


Listened to a really interesting talk by Dr Julia Shaw today on the illusion of memory.

The process in our brain by which we store memory and the one by which we imagine futures is largely the same. So we confuse the two. We all have what are termed false memories.

Proven in studies globally, eye witness recall is unreliable in that witnesses unwittingly lose detail or embellish the truth through imagination. This is not just the stress of witnessing crime – we all do it.

In essence every memory you hold might be untrue or inaccurate. Dr Shaw’s work demonstrates also how you can, simply, ‘con’ the brain into imagining a past memory. Watch here

I’m now sitting on a train looking at a reflection of the platform in a light cover. The reflection is upside down. Distorted. A bit like a false memory. But then, reflections are always distorted. Back to front or upside down. 

How apt. When we reflect on our experience, when we recall the memory, it has the potential to be distorted. Inaccurate. Missing key parts. Events that we imagined, added as truths. Events that actually happened, inflated or diminished in their significance, or removed totally.

Worth reflecting on?

neat living?

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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I need to cut the grass. It’s a routine during three seasons. Mostly a chore. Weekend job.

We cut a lot of things that grow.

Outside we not only cut grass, we prune roses, clip shrubs, pull up weeds, lop branches.

On our own bodies we clip nails, cut hair, exfoliate skin, pluck eyebrows, shave underarm hair, trim beards or shave them off all together; each day, often at prescribed times.

Most of this cutting seems to serve a tidiness purpose.

But our children grow their knowledge and we cut that too. Don’t do this, don’t say that, run away and play, not now, because I say so… Not tidy. Just timely. For us.

Our own knowledge grows wild, unkempt, organically. We prune that too. Discarding things which might be useful because they’re someone else’s opinion, experience, idea, viewpoint. Tossing our own experiences aside because we cannot find meaning or make sense of it. Often because we don’t have time to. Not tidy. Just timely.

Meanwhile, out of control, inexorably, experience washes over us. And we randomly accept knowledge and learning every day, through every interaction, every experience. Our brains filing it away with dutiful order and precision. Some to be recalled, some to be lost forever in the grey matter. There is no real plan, no real order, no tidy symmetry. Structured randomness.

Unkempt sense making, messy knowing, time restricted learning, disorderly growth.

Neat gardens, neat hair, neat nails, neat lawns, neat children.

Neat lives?

 

listening to being listened to

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Being listened to, has amazing properties.

When we need to be heard, and someone makes time, it feels like a gift. The gift of attention. It makes us feel special. Helps us make sense of our own thinking. Connects us to our own feelings. It’s cathartic. Warming. Connecting. It sets us on an even keel again. Able to move forward once more.

Being listened to, however, requires a listener.

Often a good one. One who listens. One who hears. Little, if any, interruption.

All too often though as the potential listener, we don’t pay attention to this gift giving capability. We are too busy. In our own world. We move on, neglecting. Not because we don’t care, but often because we just don’t value sufficiently the benefit of listening to another person. We are captured by our own selfish need. Our priorities. Our world, in that moment, is worth more than the world of the listened to. So we interject, we opinion give, or we don’t even see that the listened to seeks to be listened to.

We should stand regularly in the listened to space and remember its gifts.

From there, step across. Stand more frequently in the listener space. Give gifts back. Gifts to others. To those who need to be listened to.

 

is it really all in the numbers?

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There seems a relatively new phenomena in our media to describe things through the medium of numbers. Newspaper articles are written around small colour panels, gleefully pronouncing ‘In numbers…’; these are summaries to draw in those who seemingly cannot be bothered to read and understand the depth of the article. It’s as if by providing a statistic, plucked from the vast expanse of a complicated subject, we can understand. Examples in the newspaper today include…

422 million people have diabetes;
1 in 5 people say social media makes them depressed;
124 refugees were taken to Turkey from Lesbos yesterday;

It mirrors the growth in need to know small snippets of many people’s lives in social media – glimpses on Facebook, 144 characters on Twitter. We are time poor, so we’re told, and so we need to pack a lot in. Scan rather then delve. Skim rather than comprehend.

The world seems to have developed into a place of ‘know a little, about a lot’.

This crosses over into what we know about ourselves.  Small amounts of knowledge used as labels to describe extraordinarily complex unique human beings. “I’m a completer finisher”, “my type is INTP”,  “I’m a big picture person”…

Let’s start reading the entire article.  Let’s start taking a deep dive into who we are.  Let’s be curious about other people and their glorious uniqueness…

You are not just a number.

 

the passing of life

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When we hear the sad news of a celebrity or significant public personality passing, it reminds us of our own past.  Often our connection is to a shared time – the music we listened to, the films we saw, the events we witnessed.

It is the memories of those days, those shared times, the recollection of our own dim distant youth and the good times therein, that often brings the sadness, the emotion, maybe the tears.

When people close to us pass away, the number of connections is more, the richness of the memories even brighter, deeper, warmer.

It is at these points of passing, that we reflect on our own mortality. When lives end, we pay attention to the passing of our own years. Time slipping away.

Yet life is passing with every moment.

Each passing hour, minute, second is a moment of our own lives; and so many we let go without conscious thought.

So many pass without reflection to their significance; so many pass in the blink of an eye; so many slip away without time to relish their part in the contribution to our own evolution, our own personal learning and growth.

So many pass without awareness to the contribution we make to the richness of others memories. The people we touch. The difference we make. The memory making moments our existence has had, to those around us who will be here long afterwards.

The passing of life isn’t about death, it’s about now. This minute, this moment.

 

RIP David

 

when French toast trumps oatmeal…

~ steve.ridgley ~ Leave a comment

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If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you will know about Sheldon’s breakfast routine. For anyone who doesn’t, Sheldon, the main character, has a set breakfast on each day of the week. It’s an occasionally recurring comic theme. In one episode, Penny, a neighbour, is over in his flat cooking French toast for breakfast. Sheldon points out that Monday is oatmeal day. At the end of the scene Sheldon throws the French toast in the bin, remarking “smells good, what a shame it’s Monday”.

Today is New Year’s Day. Happy New Year.

I have just been out. I passed a large number of people walking, in groups. It seems customary that we go for a walk on this day, either to visit friends or relatives, or maybe just to walk off the Christmas excess.

In a few days it will be Monday, and for many of us we will return to work. That’s the routine. Work during the week, weekend off – for most of us anyhow.

Does it ever strike you as strange how we structure our activity around the structure of the day, week or even the year?

Why do we walk on this day, not on the 4th or the 19th or March the 8th? Because this is New Year’s Day, and custom says we have it as holiday and we walk.

Why do we start work on Monday? Because that’s what we seem to have set up as the norm. Sunday, the day of rest. Handed down from religious belief over centuries.

I notice at work how it has become quite commonplace for people to work from home on a Friday. An emerging time bounded custom or practice.

How much is our activity, our freedom, our choice governed by routine, custom and historic ritual structure I wonder?

We largely get up at the same time, maybe retire to bed at the same time. Eats meals to a schedule. Do things on certain days, at certain times. This is fine if that works for us, but I wonder how much of this is without conscious thought? Just a pattern, a ritual. How much is driven by societal conformity, by organisational rhythm, by peer expectation?

Maybe we should more consciously choose what we do and when? Do what we want or need, right now? Do what makes us happy in the moment?

It doesn’t have to be oatmeal Monday. You can have French toast, just because you feel like it and it smells good.

Happy New Year everyone.