Home » Posts tagged 'imagination'

Tag Archives: imagination

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Robert Macfarlane: “the metaphors we use deliver us hope, or they foreclose possibility”

June 5, 2018

Robert Macfarlane: “the metaphors we use deliver us hope, or they foreclose possibility”

They say you should never meet your heroes.  They’re wrong. I recently had the huge honour of spending almost an hour in conversation with Robert MacFarlane, author of 9 books including ‘Mountains of the Mind’, ‘The Old Ways’, ‘Landmarks’ and, most recently, ‘The Lost Words’.  I have admired Robert’s work for many years, in particular his reflections on imagination and his determination to keep alive, in our minds and our culture, a whole library of words which help us better articulate our place in, and relationship with, the natural world.  As well as being a writer, Robert teaches at Cambridge about language and landscape.  As he told me, “the convergences of those two things, along with social justice and environmental justice, are the things I’ve written most about”.

Robert is one of the most fascinating people to follow on Twitter, and he had recently tweeted a quote by Rebecca Solnit where she said, “the destruction of the Earth is due in part to a failure of the imagination, or to its eclipse by systems of accounting that can’t count what matters.”  So, I started by asking him how he would assess the state of health of our collective imagination in 2018? [Robert made a few changes to the transcript of our discussion, so you will find the transcript below more accurate, but we know how you love podcasts, so we’ll share the original audio too].

“Impoverished, vulnerable, but with surprising flourishings.  In that quotation Rebecca challenges something she calls “the tyranny of the quantifiable”.  Actually I suppose I would oddly say a word for the tyranny of the quantifiable.  We need to quantify.  It’s vital for change, not least how we measure our baselines –  how we keep track of shifting baseline syndrome.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lise van Susteren on Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the imagination

April 24, 2018

Lise van Susteren on Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the imagination

A while ago I was reading a report about the psychological impacts of climate change, and came across the term ‘pre-traumatic stress disorder’.  It fascinated me. The author of the piece that discussed the idea was Lise van Susteren.  Lise is a General and Forensic Psychiatrist in Washington D.C , and has been involved in climate change issues for the last 12 years or so.  In 2005 she sought political office, seeking the Democratic nomination to the US Senate in Maryland.

She describes ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ as “a before-the-fact version of classic PTSD”.  I was intrigued as to what impact living in a state of ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ might have on the human imagination, on its ability to flourish, and to imagine the future in positive ways.  Are we all, to one degree or another, living in a state of ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’? When we spoke, I started by asking Lise what the term means to her?

“You know, here’s the thing.  I called it Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder because it is the off-spring of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but in fact when I look at it now, and the terminology that I used, ‘disorder’, gosh, I’m here thinking to myself, “It’s not Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It’s a Pre-Traumatic Stress condition that I wonder why everybody else doesn’t have?”

Maybe the disorder is not having a Pre-Traumatic Stress condition.  Given everything the scientists are telling us, given how late the hour is, and how grave the consequences, the abnormality now is not having a Pre-Traumatic Stress condition.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Failure of Imagination

October 26, 2015

A Failure of Imagination

Simply stated we create our own reality……although it is a ‘reality’ strictly limited to the range and scope of our beliefs and imagination. Thus if we can conceive of a world no different than what we believe actually exists, which in turn is based solely upon our present day (deliberately) limited perception, then this is exactly what we shall (co)create, maintain and interact with.

This concept is staggering in its simplicity and self evident when we consider it from all sides and with an open mind. Of course, it follows then that those of limited imagination, either by way of training, conditioning, ignorance or denial, will see my statement as nonsensical and ridiculous, thus perpetuating their (and our) own narrow, stagnant and self destructive reality.

It is my contention we are all conceived as perfect reality creators, though not yet fully formed and completely untrained, who are hijacked and sidetracked into a slave culture reality designed to serve others and not our ‘selves’. This process has so twisted our natural human impulse for free and unique reality creation the end result expresses as individual and collective insanity. Sadly, tragically, we are all terribly insane and getting worse by the moment.

Ultimately this deeply implanted and completely alien subversion of our mind, spirit and body acts as a lingering virus or infection which, while not deadly (yet), is extremely debilitating and exhausting. This serves to further reinforce the inner insanity while also undermining defensive devices employed by our inner ‘self’ in order to recover from what we subconsciously ‘know’ deep within is an externally applied alien abomination.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress