Jonathan Swarbrick

I have in the past been very reluctant to engage with the defined structures of our society and culture, I have fostered anger towards cultural codes, symbolism and bureaucracy and have had an unwillingness to engage in a career or material success. The material trappings that numb the spirit.

Last night I watched the 2007 film “Into the Wild”. It is based on a true story of Christopher McCandless who, without giving too much away, leaves behind his family and materialistic existance to journey on the road. He eventually finds his way into the wilderness of Alaska to live in solitude with just a few provisions.

I have never been brave enough to let go and leave, I think I probably need people too much and I’m not as strong as I wish I was. The closest thing to this is 3 weeks a year wandering.

But somehow over the last couple of years I have begun to choose to partake in the social structures, holding my ideals and dreams close to my heart but allowing myself to engage. I was challenged by a friend about a year ago that I was talking of rejecting “the man” when I in fact I was “the man”. I don’t think I began to engage because I was not brave or strong enough not to. I think I began to engage as I recognised it was the only way to find genuine freedom and completeness - not running away from the trappings and mess but seeing myself as part of it and freedom coming from within.

But I am often stirred by the call of adventure, and I still find the frustration of being caught in a job and the things that bear weight in my life ultimatily being meaningless. But it is not one of the other - life in wilderness or life caught in the rat race, but is something greater. It is not just somewhere in between, a balance of both but it is the fullness of both, it is one inside the other. It cannot be about pure consumption versus pure expression, it is about breathing in and out.

I read this yesterday in a book by Zadie Smith and I do like it:

“It is like this, there are two aspects of Hashem, Alex. Hashem as He is in manifestation and as He is in Himself. The first formed a covenant with the Jewish people and they must try to walk together towards Him. That’s the point of community. That’s the point of Hasidim, for example. But the second aspect - Ein Sof, Ayin, the unknowable, the infinite nothing - this can only be approached by the solitary traveller.”

I wanted to write something conversational but didn’t get round to it… typical

There was quite a hubbub at work this morning as staff were discussing the rejection of the bail out plan by the US congress.

I do find it all rather frustrating as it seems we have had to be heading here for so long. The real implications on peoples lives of course bring the biggest concern to people worried about their savings, their mortgages and already tight budgets.

BUT… we cannot have our cake and eat it. Recession is part of economic growth, it is the business cycle. If we want to live in global capitalism then this is part of it - the problem this time being that we have seen the growth of mega-companies and global capital networks, at home people have been living by credit and we are deep in a culture which says that bigger is better, too much is not enough, we need it now and can have what we want when we want it.

THIS CANNOT GO ON FOREVER it just is not sustainable, our choices carry consequences and we must realise this. I really hope that this will trigger scaling down of companies and of markets.

BUT I feel normal people are being cheated. Being led to believe that we can live like we do forever in a state of permanent growth. We do not have to see the cost. Credit has been easy and cheap. Its been a big trick and now we are left to struggle in the mess it has left. We have been hearing the groans of the environment for many years and we know that things can’t just keep going and growing how they are. The affects of our glutenous living will permeate everything.

I’m not saying we should live in a centrally controlled state, far from it, the opposite in fact but people cannot be allowed to believe, by suppliers of goods/services/governance - whatever, that we are gods. Living spoiled as we have been, with our social security, our elected government that takes care of all our needs, leads us all to be like spoiled children. No one can or believes they can have any kind of voice in how things are run or how things can change. We just watch tv and play playstation.

Can anyone actually see things getting better?

Sometimes its seems that relationships can be more about the relationship itself rather than the person. (Speaking generally rather than romantic.) Relationships should always be about the person themselves but often it seems that there is relationship breakdown because people idolize the relationship itself and as people change or make mistakes, as inevitably happens, it affects their “relationship” which turns in on itself and becomes damaged.

Perhaps if people were valued above the relationship there would be a greater grace for one another and a greater space for moving and growing together and the relationship developing. Perhaps trying to protect a relationship can damage it.

It is like when you see old friends or family it is easy to revert to old ways. Certainly with family, growing up, the relationships revolved about self and the focus was on the relationship not the family member - so on return you start where you left off. Those relationships that are just about the actual people are freer to pick up where ever you are in the present, there is space for people to be different. It has to be ok, whether the relationship is closer or not - it is shaped by the people rather than it shaping them.

I wonder if the same is true in other areas. In business for instance, or relationships that are forged around a task. What would genuinely people centered business look like - or people centered church - or people centered governance?

Stop - patience is needed. One mustn’t be instantly pleased nor should he reach his goals immediately after setting out - if it can be helped. It is important not to miss out on the struggle trying to attain them.

A carefully crafted budget or a well thought out plan should be coupled with a steadfast patience, passionately looking ahead into the distance.

What is it the waiting will yield? Waiting and waiting. Waiting and walking, then stopping and waiting.

What you wait for might arrive if you do not give much attention to appearing well before others but try to honour what it is that encouraged you to wait.

Not much time ago I was of the opinion that in order to work 9-5 Monday-Friday in a “normal” job I would have to allow a part of myself to die. I have been starting to feel that this is not a fair reflection, that this part of me must slow down, fade slightly, lie dormant, perhaps hibernate but it does not die. I have certainly found that it revives from time to time.

I want to develop a good relationship with this part of me. I am sure that if I do I will be able ‘live from the place of dreaming’ (see Day Dreaming blog).

I am beginning to do so as I find that I am not, to so great an extent, living for the next thing - the end of the working day, the weekend, Christmas - but am content where and when I am. I am content Monday morning. Everything runs its course; Monday comes round when it does, as does Friday and that is good.

I use to fear that to be where I am now, to find contentment in living, would be to be half dead. To let go of the adventure and to give up the journey. But where there is opportunity for the imagination to let one take risks, that cannot be true.

As I sort through my things and have another weekly tidy I realise that my bedroom is a picture of myself. It seems that often my goal is to achieve a state of perfect creative expression.  In this place everything is peace, I arrive home from work in total rest and spend my evening in perfect harmony with myself.  Time can never be wasted, I no longer have the hunger to consume but an overflow of expressed self.

As I tidy I understand that I have tricked myself into a journey of bureaucracy that I hope will one day lead to this place.

I wonder if one day I will wake up with the realisation that my dreams and my reality are forever separate.  I soak into books with the vague belief that I am reading stories that will some how seep into my life, that actually my dreams and my reality will mysteriously converge into one another.

Can my imagination weave itself into my life or do I need to choose between them?

I have been on a short hiatus from writing - buying a house then leaving to go  away for a few weeks.

I will begin to write again shortly…

Should consumers be given the weighty responsibility of choice? Is our understanding of “rights” skewed?

We live in a market driven political and economic society. Consumer is king and bears the responsibility for making ethical choices to protect the long term sustainability of lifestyle and to promote the development of those less rich (quieter voices in the market). Because of the inherent competitive nature of capitalism, particularly in this individualistic market driven society, people make choices based on themselves and their immediate wants and making sacrifice equates to having less than others (and less freedom).

We seek to raise awareness and promote ethical living to the consumer and hope that will make change. But the supermarkets stock caged chicken and eggs because people want CHEAP products. What the consumer wants, the consumer gets - however unethical it is, or however much havoc it reeks with the environment - as long as it is within the boundaries of the law.

So… Do we just keep keep rallying the consumers, educating, equipping them to make informed choices - which they perhaps have the right do however ‘good’ or ‘bad’ their choices will be - or do we seek to change policy and legislation that we remove and start to limit the choices of the consumer? (Bearing in mind that in democracy you can see the voter as a consumer and the politician as another form of supplier.)

I think that the only thing we are able to do that can really do the business is pray.

Man, If I took everything I read in the media at face value I would be pretty messed up in the head!

I would believe the scaremongering, I would believe that there was an axis of evil, that there were “good” countries of freedom such as those in the West and there were those that were out to get us and destroy the freedom we have fought for. I would probably believe that Iranians, North Koreans and Syrians were pretty bad and we were pretty good.
I would probably be scared of young people and those that live on council estates

And because of this I would think very much in terms of them and us. I would think there was a chasm between us where no bridge could stretch, alienated from those unlike me. I wouldn’t realise how complex society in todays world is, I couldn’t recognise that people are people the world over. That people in the middle east share so much of our life experience - because they are like us.