The end of the world as we know it
Rome collapsed and plunged the western world into a time of barbarism and the Dark Ages. No-one at the time thought “we are in the dark ages” and of course there were bright flashes within the Dark Ages but largely this was not a good time for the human race. Dogma, superstition and general ignorance [...]
Understanding the game
Understanding the internet is something that I’m trying to do. Of course it’s brilliant that we can interact with one another, there’s a kind of anonymity that allows people to be things that in the real world they’re not. I’m beginning to get it. There’s a perceived safety that grows out of not having to [...]
What is The Mechanics Of Happiness?
The Mechanics of Happiness is my blog. I am a writer who lives in England and this blog is a shoot from the hip collection of posts and articles all created to generate interest in the books that I write. I tend to keep my powder dry because, as a writer, I don’t want to [...]
Two huge challenges
Two questions, among the many, that are huge. How can a person to know anything? And how should they try to live? To the former there are several answers according to various traditions. The most compelling for me is the empirical one, that is according to one’s experience. The only things you can know with [...]
Are you influenced by mass hysteria?
Our lives are cathedrals of manifestation. Palettes wherein the colours of our experience are blended and what we do is daubed upon the canvas of our attempts to define ourselves. We exist within a combination of fixed parameters with a fluid possibility. We have agency within our own lives and can be and do whatever [...]
Navigation
Develop a strong moral compass. Base this upon consideration of what is appropriate or not. Ask the question, “What sort of person do I want to be?” You will have to build that person, create them, be them, fill their skin; nothing at the higher levels happens by chance. Your experience is a series of [...]
Who do you think you are?
Normal is a state of mind. Whatever environment you grew up in was normal. This is why a full man can’t understand a hungry man, the rich can’t understand the poor. Not accurately. They can appreciate and sympathise at an intellectual level but true empathy requires for a person to have walked that walk themselves. [...]
It’s the jouney not the destination
Happiness is not so much a destination as a journey. It is the culmination of a series of processes, namely growth and development, fulfilment and the inevitable state that summons. We struggle in the developed world with this equation because the pressures upon us are immense. The society we have created is far more complex [...]
Growing up normal
I grew up in the 1960′s/70′s. It was an interesting time. There was social reform and upheaval occurring all round. When you’re in it, you’re the last one to know it. What you encounter sets the parameters of your experience and defines for you what is normal. It’s one of those big stick words, ‘normal’, [...]
Intelligence
About happiness, it’s a state of mind. A self fulfilling prophecy that has little or no bearing upon external factors. It’s a strange, subjective place. The kind of place that summons images of Ingmar Bergman films and madmen laughing in the snow. They do that because their own state is quite at odds with their [...]