How much is too much?

I'm currently reading Enough, Breaking free form the world of more by John Naish, which I discovered through Lisa G's blog, The State I'm In. I'm a great believer, or noticer of synchronicities so when my husband discovered his hotmail account had been hacked and used to spam everyone on his list about chinese computers, I was reading this book and feeling all-luddite again! I often feel overwhelmed with technology but not in itself, I realize, but rather because of the overload of information it brings to my doorstep. Particularly with my son and my quest to find out as much as possible about autistic spectrum disorders, but the trouble is, there is sooo much out there its very difficult to know where to start. I'm back to basics, starting at the library, as my preferred intake of knowledge is through reading books, and not the computer.

So Enough is about simplfying, but also realizing how damaging consumerism is in all its modes, including eating, which is a really interesting chapter, as there's been a barrage of television shows recently on how Britain is getting fatter (like us, its fat American cousins!).

Of course it makes me wonder about keeping up with my blog, and if its really necessary or am I just contributing pointlessly to the info smog. I don't know. I have a job interview later today, and that could determine a big change in my daily life and time schedules.

However, thinking about the hotmail thing, I cancelled my account as I no longer use it, which was probably why my husband's was infiltrated, he rarely uses it.. and I cancelled my Myspace account a few weeks ago as I had experienced a similar hijacking problem with my account sending out some ridiculous bulletins that I of course had no idea about until a friend emailed me. Frankly I found myspace very annoying and rubbishy. Of course I also spend too much time on Facebook, which is also unreal and rubbishy- but not in the same way to me as myspace was. I may do what Bill Gates apparently does once a year, and have a 'think-week' away from the computer. That could go for the television as well.. in fact when we move, I'm considering leaving it behind and making a clean break!

From the book:

"We are so wired to gather information that often we no longer do anything useful with it. Instead of pausing to sift our intake for relevance and quality, the daily diet of prurient, profound, confusing and conflicting information gets chucked on to a mental ashheap of things vaguely comprehended. Then we rush to try to make sense of it all by...getting more."

One point mentioned in the book is that it bears thinking about measuring our computer, tv and other technology time in a reasonable manner, especially for and with our children, as they are growing up completely immersed in this and never knowing anything other. We have hindsight as to what our lives were like as children without computers, but we don't know the true effect it will have on our children as they grow up. That said, my own daughter is shouting at me now which is not a good sign, a sign that I should get off here.

Life as a Circle

This morning I've been reflecting on how life seems to move in circles and how people often refer to it as spiraling upward or downward, or things coming 'full circle'. Circle of life. Breathing in and breathing out, rising and falling, beginning and ending. I have always been drawn to the spiral image and one of my favourite pieces of jewelery is a hand-made silver spiral ring that I bought on the isle of Skye in Scotland many years ago.

The synchronicity of life appeared again when I received an email on Thursday from an old high school friend. I haven't heard from her since we entered our first year in college. Life took us on different paths, to different parts of the country. Nevertheless, she was someone that I have thought about often, and now she has come back into my circle of life so to speak. She is running her own business producing herbal skincare, http://www.heirloombotanicals.com/ which shows me how our paths have led us to similar interests once again.

In Steiner education, the spiral is used to represent this time of year, advent and winter. I'm not especially well versed in Steiner, but I can say that I understand it to represent the journey both inward, and outward. The spiral advent festival also represents the coming of the longest night (solstice) and the return of the light that happens with the lengthening of days after the winter solstice occurs.

At the moment, I feel connected to everything and that is a wonderful, if not sometimes fleeting feeling, as everyday living often makes us forget the utter simplicity and perfection of this life. But hey, if I remembered these insights all the time then I'd be enlightened.

Manners & Philosophy

I suppose I should have picked a theme for Nablopomo as I seem to be somewhat random in my thoughts on here, but I suppose there's an overall loose theme to my blog, to my life. And what is that? Probably what I set out in my 'mission statement' of sorts when I started this blog.. to blog about what means something to me, my kids, my life, spirituality, health, the environment, music, books and anything in between. So there you have it.

Yesterday I finished reading The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. I first read 44 Scotland Street a couple of years ago, and having lived in Edinburgh I love reading stories set within its fascinating streets. Somehow, I forgot about these books, but am back to them now. I will be reading Friends, Lovers, Chocolate next in this series, as well as Espresso Tales, more from 44 Scotland Street. I have not read The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series yet, which is also by Alexander McCall Smith and highly acclaimed. The setting for that series is Botswana, and I'm afraid its really Edinburgh that draws me more.

In The Sunday Philosophy Club, which never meets, by the way, we are introduced to Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher, editor of an ethics magazine and aspiring private detective. Its the philosophical observations running through the book that I really enjoyed, as well as the mystery to be solved. In one section Isabel (who naturally, has perfect manners, but can be nosey!) rails on manners and the decline of this generation to have any, which I would say is true (oh but it makes me sound old), and a topic I came across on Blogher (i think it was) this week as well. From The Sunday Philosophy Club:

Good manners depended on paying moral attention to others; it required one to treat them with complete moral seriousness, to understand their feelings and their needs.

... How utterly shortsighted we had been to listen to those who thought that manners were a bourgeois affectation, an irrelevance, which need no longer be valued. A moral disaster had ensued, because manners were the basic building block of a civil society. They were the method of transmitting the messege of moral consideration.

In this way an entire generation had lost a vital piece of the moral jigsaw and now we saw the results: a society in which nobody would help, nobody would feel for others; a society in which aggressive language and insensitivity were the norm.

(Ugh I can't seem to get the block quote to go off!!)Whew what a mouthful, but I love philosophy and especially enjoy it in this form, truths within a base of an absorbing fiction story. Enjoyable and thought provoking without too much banging of the head. There was a local news story recently of a woman who died in a doorway due to a brain annuerism as she was carrying home some wood shelving from the DIY store. Two young men, in thier 20's came along and urinated on her (and filmed themselves of course). She died shortly after.

They claim to have been drunk and high, but at that moment they came along, she had actually been in the midst of dying. How completely awful and without conscience is that. I don't know anyone who ever did that when they were drunk. Does being drunk mean you completely lose your moral compass? Or is it just a convenient excuse for no moral compass? And with this new 'happy slapping' phenomena (I've just seen yet another depressing news story about it today -here in the UK), where one doesn't think of helping first, but filming or creating crime instead, it does seem that a portion at least, of our society is slipping into some clockwork orange netherworld. Oh, I'm getting irritable again so I'll quit!!