Broadband and Richard Dawkins

Hello again... if there's anybody out there…

Gosh it's been along time since I wrote anything for this blog. This is mainly because my broadband still hasn't arrived, after seven months of promises. It seems BT needs to dig up most of Wales before I can get even a very slow link. But 228Kbps would be ten times faster than my dial-up link, and I can live with that. I only need to access text, on the whole, rather than five thousand pixellated phone clips of drunken teenagers splattering each other with food in a like totally awesome kind of way.
Actually, the timing of the broadband is almost spot-perfect, in a like totally surprising sort of way. Here's why…

For about 15 years now I've been working on plans for my Great Work, which will, if I get it right, show how Religion and Science can be re-united once more. Nobody I've mentioned this scheme to believes a word of it, it must be said. Even people who know I'm not actually barking seem to suddenly remember a dental appointment or a funeral that they are expected at, so they can swig back their glass of Chardonnay and zoom away up the drive, waving furiously, and no doubt hoping that the ambulance will arrive for me soon.

But I'm quite serious. I really can show how this age-old split can be healed, and, what's more, I think I can show how the split arose in the first place.
Mainly it's just a question of simple logic; that's the essence of it, anyway. (Anyone who has read Scenes from a Smallholding will perhaps remember the last chapter, called 'The Tale of the Kale', in which I outline this logic. [A few first editions are still available from www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk])

Anyway… over the past couple of months I have amazed myself by actually making a start on writing this Oeuvre, instead of just worrying at it and letting it keep me awake at night. The breakthrough came when it occurred to me to write the text on the RH pages, while writing notes, extended arguments, a glossary, cartoons etc onto the LH pages. This would mean that the reader can pick and choose how to read the book. I will personally recommend that the reader reads just the RH pages for the first time through. If they've had enough by then, one way or the other, well that's OK. But if they find they want to know a bit more about say, the Aristotle/Copernicus split, or about papal infallibility, or about the link between Isaac Newton and the doctrine of Karma, or how the Enlightenment relates to science… well, they can re-read the book, picking stuff off the LH pages as they go. It's a sort of 'personally tailored' approach I'm after, the aim being to make the book as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

I sent the first chapter to my agent. To my astonishment, he liked what I'd written and wanted to read more. (Usually he doesn't like what I've written, usually because he doesn't think anyone will want to publish it. And usually, I suppose, he's right.)
That was the good news. The bad news was… that he didn't like the LH/RH thing.

Bah! I'm sticking with it. We can argue later. Meanwhile it helps me get a sense of proportion into the topics I'm dealing with. That's what has been bugging and delaying me for so long…. How much weight to give to each point I want to make; and also, maybe even more importantly, what order to put the myriad points into. What I'm nervous of is that I'll start at point A, which might interest a scientist, say… but which might be completely hopeless for a religious person, and put them off altogether. The LH pages can help me out here, as I can add reassuring little messages where I think someone might be losing interest or becoming confused.

Now I've written the first two introductory chapters, and am about to get into areas that need more close attention. This attention will involve quite a bit of research on the internet. And guess what… broadband should be arriving almost bang on the button. Great!

But first I'm tackling a tricky subject in Chapter Three: Richard Dawkins. This is a man of huge enthusiasm and learning, and indeed of intellect, but who has one blind spot, which is the cause of a lot of confusion among people I've talked to. This same blind spot has also been the cause of untold misery for millions of people, when viewed over the last hundred years or so.
What is this blind spot? Any offers?

It is this: neo-Darwinists, of whom RD is the most zealous, make three essential claims:
1. The bodies of living things have evolved and changed by very small increments over time, and were not created once off, perfect.
2 The mechanism by which Evolution operates is the grim and glacially slow process of Natural Selection, which is a process part random (genetic mutation) and part rational (the slow and feeble don't survive to pass on their feeble genes).
3 Life arose via some unknown incremental process of random self-assemblage of molecules.

Which is the odd one out? Please.. take a minute to look at all three points carefully before reading on….

Tum ti tummm ti tum tum ti.. tummm………











*********************


Yes. It's number 3.
While 1 and 2 have a lot of evidence to support them, and a logical framework too, number 3 is just a dogmatic assertion, based on no more than the triumphalism of having more or less proved The Church to be wrong about Creationism.
There is no evidence at all for Life having originated in this casual 'incremental' manner, and if you look at the statistical unlikeliness of even a few of the necessary conjoinings having occurred at random.. well, numbers like 10 to the power of 30, 40 and 50 turn up pretty soon. And even if all these grotesquely unlikely conjoinings and associations actually did occur by chance.. there is still no logical mechanism by which abiotic (un-alive) chemicals could have spontaneously transformed themselves into something recognisably biotic (alive).

Here's the essential point: in the tradition of science, any theory which has A) no rational basis, and B) no evidence to support it, should be discarded as fantasy. But neo-Darwinists continue to trumpet spontaneous creation as Fact and Truth…. Not out of malice, but because it has become a blind spot…
The blind spot has become so powerful that Mr Dawkins seems to have completely forgotten that his hero, Charles Darwin, mentions 'the Creator' several times in each of the editions of 'The Origin of Species', and then RD makes things worse by saying that the need for 'a Creator' is 'transparently feeble'. That's one in the eye for his hero, then. But again, RD doesn't seem to notice. Blind spots can take you over if you don't keep your wits about you.

This why anyone who watched RD's first tv programme on Darwin the other week would have noticed that some of the teenagers he was gently haranguing didn't seem to immediately fall into line with what he was expecting of them.
RD thinks: 'Natural Selection and Evolution are Truth. Why on earth don't people just accept it?'
The kids think: 'Hmm.. interesting. Lots of evidence.. fossils and so on… but I dunno.. something funny somewhere….'
Most people think the same way as those kids, to the total bafflement and exasperation of Mr Dawkins.

The 'something funny' that the kids aren't knowledgeable enough to pick up on, is that they don't see how Life Mind and Consciousness could have spontaneously generated out of mud, rock and lightning, never mind how many trillions of years these 'components' had in which to spontaneously assemble themselves.
The kids, and people in general, intuit that there's something fishy going on here, and they instinctively then transfer this suspicion to everything else RD tells them, fossil evidence or not.
This is normal sensible human behaviour: if you find (or intuit) one flaw in what you're being told, you quite rightly suspect everything else. Estate agents are slowly learning this.
RD can't see this problem however, and thinks that people who don't fall into line with his own (in his view) perfectly sensible explanations must be irretrievably stupid or wilful. Hence his edginess and niggly tone.

Presumably, neo-Darwinists think that this selfsame intuition that their critics feel, also spontaneously generated itself out of chemicals. What does your own intuition suggest to you about that?

Right.. back to Chapter Three…
If you, dear reader, would find it interesting to read about how the book is coming on, drop me a line and I'll post an occasional progress report on the blog.

All best wishes to all, including Mr Dawkins, of course

Chas

PS: RD also says that Darwin's explanation for all the improbable creatures we see in the world around us is that they came into being "by gradual, step-by-step transformation from simple beginnings, from primordial entities sufficiently simple to have come into being by chance".
This, I'm afraid is simply not true.
Not only did Darwin require 'a Creator' in all editions of Origins, but he also states quite unequivocally '…I have nothing to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself.'
Check it for yourself: 1st paragraph, Chapter 7, 1st edition; or 1st paragraph, Chapter 8, 6th edition.
Blind spots can lead you into error; sometimes into serious error.
The Materialism that underpins conventional neo-Darwinism has led us all into serious error. More on this some other time.

Why All Writers are Millionaires: (apart from a few who aren't): part 8

My wife Anne, ('She who Understands Things'), has just done our annual accounts, and tells me that my earnings from writing for the last financial year were 'almost £1,300'.
This would buy a decent lunch for two in Chelsea, I believe, but it doesn't seem a lot for the hundreds of hours spent hacking away at the keyboard over the past twelve months. How did it come to be this way?

Firstly, my sort-of novel, called 'Your Dog as Philosopher' put my agent into a tailspin.
What I was trying to do was to write a funny story about a man left on his own for a week with his feisty toddler daughter and his flolloping dog, and to blend it with an easy-reading introduction to Yogic philosophy (a subject that I think every thoughtful person deserves to have access to).

Stan read it and said 'Sorry…'
I said 'Oh surely not..? I thought it was quite funny. Don't you agree?'
'Yes', said Stan, 'the book is funny; and yes, it is interesting and informative and stimulating, too.' But the problem was that no publisher was going to touch it, because you can't have a book about philosophy that is funny.
'Who says so?' I asked. 'That's not the point', said Stan.
'Did I succeed in what I was trying to do?' I asked.
'Yes, you did,' said Stan.
'Well then?'
'Why don't you listen: NOBODY WILL TOUCH IT.'
This exchange went on for some time. Stan was quite right, of course, once I thought it over a bit. Publishers and editors everywhere endlessly claim that they are looking for 'fresh' or 'original' material… but don't let them fool you. They are not. What they want is something very very similar to the last thing that fluked them a lot of money. Original is RISKY; and there's nothing a modern publisher hates more than the 'r' word.
Stan's solution was that I should remove all of the story element from the book and try again with it.
This depressed me rather, but I had a go. Stan played his part, and took the time to supply a bare outline for me to start from, and Anne had a go as well, but after a week of trying, I shelved it. I was just too close to the original to untangle the two strands of story and content. And I kept becoming unsure of what was 'story' and what wasn't. I ended up in a fuddle. The file is on my C drive, awaiting further attention one day.
A couple of people have read the text, meanwhile, and have reported favourable things back to me, but Stan is still adamant that no publisher will give it house room. I'm sure he's right, still.

So.. no success there, then.
My next effort was a self-help book called 'Guide Yourself to Happiness', a subject close to my heart, as I am endlessly happy and have long been puzzled why so many other people seem not to be. I sent Stan the first chunk, and he came back positive, so I went ahead and wrote the book.
Stan read it and was still positive. He sent it off to half a dozen publishers, including Piatkus, who we thought would definitely like the look of it.
Responses came back, slowly, which is never a good sign. One house said no thanks because only published a certain number of UK titles per year and they'd already filled their quota. I can only assume that this was a polite brush-off; otherwise it suggests that timing is more important to them than quality.
Two other houses said it was a good book (in fact nobody had a bad word to say about it, except one editor thought it might be a bit 'stronger', by which I think she meant 'more sensational'.. the very opposite of what the essence of the book is about) but they couldn't take it on as 'the author doesn't have his own radio or tv show' to launch it from.
Sleb culture rules OK?
We never heard back from Piatkus at all, despite several approaches.

So no joy there, either.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd try my hand at drama again, for a couple of Amateur Dramatic friends, and wrote a three-acter called 'Upper Nattem's Little Piglet: or Hamlet, the Panto'. I thought it worked ok, and sent off to a few friends to read. Reports back were positive so I sent it to my 'clients'. They didn't like it.

Three down. One to go.

That left something I'd been pottering along with over the year: a series of short stories, or vignettes, each based around a day in the life of twenty different dogs. The stories were loosely connected, and intertwined here and there. I asked an artist if she'd like to draw for it, and she came up with a couple of preliminary drawings that looked good.

'OK, Stan? What do you think of 'Dog Days'?
'Er… sorry, Chas… but no.'
'Well why not? I realise some of the stories are a bit 'dark', but they are realistic, I think. Don't you agree?'
'Well yes, I'm sure you're right.'
'So do you want a couple of more cuddly stories instead?'
'Er… I'll come back to you.'
In the end, Stan just didn't feel right about it. Again, he didn't think a publisher would want it.
In my heart of hearts I wasn't surprised. The stories weren't cuddly enough for conventional requirements. To publish them would be….risky.

So.. four up, and four knocked down! I guess that's why not all writers are millionaires! The message, for any wannabe writers reading this is.. if you want to sell a lot of books, study the market, and write something almost, but not quite, exactly like something that has already sold a million. It will probably be rejected on the grounds that it is too like the book you copied, but if you show any promise as a writer the agent will work with you and encourage you along suitable lines for your next effort.
If on the other hand, you want to do something original.. be warned. Unless you name is Wayne Rooney or Paris Hilton, don't even consider writing a funny philosophy book!

On Materialism and Idealism...

Hello Omnist...

Good to hear from you. And thanks for all the information, too.

It comes as a shock to learn that Darwin used 'the Creator' even in the first edition of 'Origins'. I have clearly been misinformed by other sources, but upon checking in a couple of recent reprints (Penguin 85; Wordsworth 98) I see you are indeed correct. Thankyou for this.
However, I'm still left with the puzzle of why anyone should want to re-publish the first edition of a Great Work rather than the definitive last edition. I still smell a wish to mislead, I'm afraid.
The essence of the matter is that Darwin seems to have been a clear and honest thinker, and thus made a distinction between the logical need for an Ultimate Cause of some sort (his 'Creator') and the subsequent bafflingly irrational and apparently unfeelingly cruel 'God' of The Church.
It's my impression that modern neo-Darwinists have not taken this into account when they decided to abandon all non-Materialist elements from their dogma, and are thus embarrassed that their figurehead should mention 'the Creator' multiple times in the final edition of 'Origins', even in his famous last sentence: 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with it several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one…'.
By re-issuing the first and not the last edition they have reduced the damage to their dogma as much as possible, short of actually editing the embarrassing 'Creator' out completely. As it is, I've read (and heard) many a review of the great man and his book which quotes the last sentence as 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one..'. These reviewers have clearly read the reprinted first editions and have thus been subtly misled. By whom? The publishers? Or the scientists who write the introductions, and who presumably choose which edition should be published?

Of course, by showing a belief in 'the Creator', Darwin would not be eligible for membership of the neo-Darwinist movement, which ought to be a great embarrassment to Materialists, but never seems to be such. Certainty is not embarrassable, as history endlessly teaches us, from the Inquisition to Hitler and beyond!

You suggest that Materialism and Idealism are not opposites. I disagree. Of course, you are right in saying that under the terms of normal discussion A being wrong does not automatically make B correct; for example BigEndians being wrong does not make LittleEndians correct; and because 'Communism' is wrong, that does not make 'Capitalism' right; etc etc. No argument here.
But in such cases we are speaking of the relationship, or more accurately, 'non-relationship', between two separate propositions. My case is that Materialism and Idealism are not separate propositions, but are intimately linked and that thus A being wrong does (must) make B correct, by a process of logic. Why do I think this?

As ever, it depends upon our starting definitions.
Can we agree that the fundamental puzzle is 'How does Mind relate to Matter (by which I mean 'Matter/Energy' in the normal physical understanding)?'

Materialists claim that Matter came first and that Mind derived, by accident, from Matter. (I'm using 'Mind' here to include 'Life' and 'Consciousness' as well. Ridiculous, I know, but time-saving, and the distinctions are not necessary for the argument to hold.) There's the link I'm referring to: Materialists claim that Mind 'derived (or arose) from' Matter.
Conversely, Idealists claim that Mind came first and somehow created Matter. Again, the link between the two elements is stated.
Either way, the one, it is claimed, gave rise to the other. Linked.

Can we agree on these definitions, which might be summarised neatly as: either Matter → Mind or Mind → Matter? It seems to me that we must, as these equations state the barebone essentials of the question, and any attempt at modification of them is really only a fudging of the issue.
If we can agree that the above equations do state the barebones of the issue, then we are thus faced with a rare but genuine 'either/or' for us to choose between, according to the requirements of logic.
Thus, according to normal historical ways of thinking, we may choose via logic, whether Matter came first or Mind came first (I'll return to an alternative theory and way of thinking in a minute).

It is the link that matters in all of this. It is there, whether we like it or not. Either Materialism is right in its claim that Matter alone gave rise (spontaneously) to Life Mind and Consciousness from within itself alone, or it is wrong. If it is wrong, then there must, by definition, be an element involved which is extra to 'Matter alone'. That non-Matter element is the element Idealism is concerned with. Thus, if Materialism is wrong, Idealism must be right. What comes after this necessary recognition is another matter, of course.

To expose the falsity of the Materialist case again: if Matter came first, then Mind must have arisen spontaneously and purposelessly from within such Matter, because, and here's the point, there is absolutely nowhere else for it to have come from, is there?
Whichever way you try to twist it and think around it, you must invariable come back to this: that in a universe of 'only Matter', then Mind must have somehow arisen from only Matter.
The problem is that 'only Matter' is by definition, not alive, or mindful, or conscious. Thus, a Materialist is asking us to believe that our own fundamental qualities of Life, Mind, and Consciousness, arose spontaneously from Matter.. the same Matter which does not contain them.
This is clearly irrational nonsense, and requires at the very least that the universe be based on magic: ie a locus in which something may arise without cause, from nothing: the very thing Science itself is dedicated to scourging from our thinking, and quite right too.

Thus.. if Mind did not arise spontaneously from Matter.. where else could it possibly have come from? The only logical answer to this is 'not-Matter'… which is precisely what the Idealists claim.

However… given that what I've written above is just a matter of simple logic, and not a question of 'philosophy' or opinion of any sort…. Where does that leave us?

People are apt to leap to irrational conclusions, are they not? And many thus assume that because Idealism might be easily shown to be rational while Materialism is not.. they leap to all sorts of horrific assumptions, the main one being that if Science is wrong then The Church must be right. Not so. For a start, 'Science' is not wrong; only 'Materialism' is wrong; and The Church is not the only opponent of Materialism by a long shot. As you say so rightly above: A being wrong does not make B right.. in this case, Materialism being wrong does not make The Church right. There are many alternatives to be explored.

To most people, however, including just about all scientists I've met, 'The Church' is the sole perceived opponent of Materialism. Many people thus think that abandoning Materialism would mean having to adopt the wild flummeries of The Church. This is because they know of no alternative to 'The Church' as an opponent of Materialism.

For its part, The Church seems in general to have not distinguished clearly enough between Science ('Good'!) and Materialism ('Bad'!).
People in general are confused, and find no help in any of this, governed as they are by their own psychological tendencies to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong. Is Science right? Is Religion? Neither of these august institutions seems able to put a persuasive case to a genuinely rational thinker.

This mess puzzled me for a long time. Then I started to read around, and discovered that there is a way of thinking that is alien to most of us in the West, but bread and butter to Indian schools of philosophy (and various others). These understandings might be best labelled as the Esoteric view.
In a nutshell, the Esoteric view is that all Matter/Energy is alive in some sense, from the lowliest atom (and, I presume the quark and quantum) right up to Man and beyond. The creative force in the universe is Mind (coupled with Will). It is, of course, a profoundly Idealist (and therefore 'rational', as proposed above) view, but with a most interesting addition, as it provides a non-paradoxical hint of the nature of the connection between Mind and Matter.
What's more, the need for Will as a vital component in the creative process should be of considerable interest to a quantum physicist.
The Esoteric view also proposes multiple habitable dimensions other than our own local three dimensions, and thus dismisses the now-traditional notion of Time being a fourth dimension in itself.
I have also found that the Esoteric view makes sense of the whole issue of whether 'Science' or the 'The Church' is 'right'…. And much more besides.
You suggest that 'a compelling case can be made for a reality in which, like quantum particle-wave dual-unity, there is no actual difference between materialism and idealism, except in our limited and misinterpretive understanding of reality. It seems to me that the Esoteric view might support you in this.

From your letter, it seems you have not come across the Esoteric view of things. Might I commend you to it? I'll be happy so suggest a few references that I have found useful.
Incidentally, the Esoteric view is fully supportive of the 'freewill and reason' that you suggest that theologians of The Church have no time for. Anything that favours reason over dogma is worth looking into, in my book!

Thanks again for taking the trouble to write. Much appreciated… not least for correcting me on 'the Creator' in the 1st edition.

All best wishes Chas.

Gosh! A production!

Hi again, Linz…

Wow! Somebody actually wants to stage 'How Come I'm Feeling Fishnet Tights and Rotten Cardboard Boxes?'! Great stuff!

What sort of production do you have in mind? Is it part of a drama school project? ('Director's log' sounds as though it might be.) Where are you based?

Yes, of course. If I can help in some way, please do ask.

Have you been to my website ( www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk ) ? The books are autobiographical, if that's any help.

Anyway.. I look forward to hearing from you and to hear about your production. Do you think it might be better to communicate via email (see website) rather than on the blog? Or do you think other readers might be interested in the ins and outs of putting on a stage production?

All best wishes Chas

Feeling so Rotten!

Hi Linz…

Great heavens! I thought 'So How Come I'm Feeling so Rotten' had sunk without trace! How on earth did you come across it? It was languishing at number 1,786,000 in the Amazon Hot Million, last time I looked.
Just for my own amusement, I've recently changed the title to something I hope might be a little more encouraging to a casual reader, namely: 'Fishnet Tights and Cardboard Boxes' … I wonder if anybody will ever notice!

All best wishes Chas

ME, rats, & chemicals.

Hi Michelle…

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to write. Sorry to hear that you too are bothered by ME.
I'm also sorry to hear you come into contact with rats.

Being on a farm it’s inevitable that we should be in second-hand contact with the dreaded rat. They pee on things, and leave no visible trace.
I don't think my own case is connected to rats though. When I was first diagnosed, they ran a lot of tests for things like brucellosis and Weill's disease and they all showed a negative. But who knows…
The chemicals may have been contributory, however. Anne, my wife, strongly suspects so, at least. Our smallholding is organic, but when we were keeping sheep we needed to obey the law of the land and dip the poor beasts. Sheep dip derives from chemicals developed as nerve gas, and I was not best protected from it. (I go into this a bit more in 'Scenes'.)

I think my own case probably followed the classic path of nervous exhaustion followed by a flu virus. The exhaustion lowered my defences, and thus the flu got a deeper grip than it should have. So it seems, anyway… but illness is a very strange business. Nothing would surprise me.

Thanks very much for the hospital tip. I think I'm so much improved however, that I would only be wasting precious time in seeking treatment now.

For what it's worth, I think a strongly positive mental attitude is one's best ally against the debilitation ME brings. This doesn't mean railing and forcing yourself, but relaxing, accepting, and doing what is possible and worthwhile, in a gentle and attentive manner. I guess a Buddhist would put it more elegantly, but that's near enough!
More and more, since my own experiences, I'm drawn to the feeling that ME is Nature's way of drawing one's attention to the way we are living our lives, and encouraging purposeful introspection, as in Socrates' famous saying that 'a life unexamined is a life not worth living'. I can see what he meant now, whereas I don't think I did before I got ill.
For me, the resolution is summed up in the phrase 'I am a human being, not a human doing'. This sounds very trite and Christmas-crackery, but deep within it, it contains what I now think is a very deep and valuable truth.

Thanks again for writing. Have a great day.. and try to keep away from rats!
All best wishes Chas

A few comments on M.E.

It's come back again this afternoon, out of the blue. No apparent cause. No warning.
I'd been active in the morning, hacking and lifting some pretty heavy matted ivy off the yard, and carrying poles and posts around, and sawing a bit of firewood. But nothing excessive.
Soup and apples for lunch, as per usual.
Had a half hour sit, reading an old paper.
Went out to join Anne in sorting boxes of apples, as arranged. The apples have been over-wintering in the packhouse, and many of them have either begun to rot, or have been nibbled and destroyed by voles, or rats, or something. We wore latex gloves to protect against Weill's disease, carried by rat piss.
I carried a few tubs of damaged fruit to the compost heap, then suddenly felt weak and incapable. I recognised it as the M.E. paying a visit.
It's not like ordinary tiredness, or even ordinary exhaustion. I feel my energy just draining away, and I'm left in a sort of limbo. Not tired enough to sleep, but not awake enough to actually do anything. Physical work just seems impossible, especially if it requires attention or judgement. I'm likely to make mistakes and make silly decisions. I don't handle sharp tools at times like this.
If it's a bad bout, I can barely read. Well, I can read the words, but they don't make much sense. At the moment I'm reading a book called 'The Essence of the Gnostics'. It's not a particularly difficult book, but you need to be alert to cope with the ideas. No point in trying to read this now! I'd simply be wasting my time.
And I'm not alert enough to try the general knowledge crossword. I look at the clues and note that some of them I don't properly understand, although they're not in code or cryptic: just straightforward questions. Other clues I do understand, but I'm aware that although I know I know the answers, I also know that the answers will not be delivered up to me. My recall is on go-slow.
It's as if there's a sort of blind been half-drawn between my mind and me. Or should that be 'my Mind' and 'Me'? Yes, I think so. Or 'my brain' and 'Me'? Mmmm…
Nothing feels right. I have an overwhelming feeling that I ought to eat something that will make everything all right. From previous bouts I recognise that this is a snare. I find myself eating nuts or sweet things. Sometimes muesli. But nothing works. Sometimes a shot of scotch will do the trick, but it's not my favoured remedy, as I know it's only short-term, and if I have more than two shots I'll pay for it later by feeling extra drowsy in the evening or worse, waking up in the middle of the night, with a pounding heart and then be unable to get back to sleep for at least an hour. And quite often it only makes things worse, right from the start.
No.. nothing works. But all the time there is this powerful urge to seek out the magic mouthful that will bring energy and relief from the woozy fog within. It's very hard to resist. So I've just had two sticky bars. No.. they didn't help. Now I just feel stickied up and guilty too, as my weight has gone up again recently despite my previous triumph of losing three stone.
I wonder about picking up the 'Pickwick Papers', which I started last week… but I can't be bothered with it. This is no reflection upon the book, but upon the fact that I don't enjoy fiction much any more, not even now, when I can't read a 'proper book'.
This is another irritating effect of this sort of attack of 'M.E. Lite': a feeling of frustration that I can't be getting on with something worthwhile or meaningful.
So what to do?
Play my guitar? No.. don't be silly. You don't have the strength or focus (you know this from previous experience) and no inspiration will be forthcoming. You'll just scratch away at a few chords, but it will be unimaginative and unfulfilling: just more frustration.
Listen to a bit of music: 'Yes, but…'
'Yes but' is a very common reaction to all suggestions when the M.E. strikes. Nothing is quite right. Nothing will hit the spot. Not food. Not reading. Certainly not creativity.
Alright, let's try listening to some music.
My musical taste are pretty catholic, so I riffle through the CD's to find the right thing. Unsurprisingly, nothing seems to hit the right note. Lively or quiet? A sampler of African music picked up in Oxfam yesterday? No.. too… I dunno… too 'in yer face'. So what about the Schubert string quintet, also from Oxfam? OK… let's try it.
Yes, it's fine, but I feel myself being picky. Isn't that cello just a bit strident? And suddenly the whole piece seems to be merely trying for effect, whatever that means.

The good news is that this is just a mild bout, and I can be pretty sure that it will pass in a few days. It might even have gone by morning, as suddenly and mysteriously as it arrived.
If it were as severe as when I first 'caught' it, I'd be lying in bed feeling just completely bloody awful (a medical term). Curiously, though, I wouldn't be feeling frustrated, as I am at the moment, because I would know I was properly ill, and doing anything other than Lying in Bed Being Ill would not appear on the horizon.
The other good thing is that there is no pain, or any other symptom other than debilitation, associated with the sort of M.E. I get. I just need to ride it out, and smile.
So.. I smile, and ride it out.
It's a damn nuisance to Anne, of course. She's just come in after sorting all the rest of the apples herself. It took her a couple of hours. I could have saved her a lot of effort.
No.. no I couldn't. And that's that.

I wish I could pin down what brings these bouts on. Anne is very good at spotting trends and possible causes, but it's defeated even her over the past twenty-plus years. It comes. It hangs around. It goes.

I'm continuing this the following morning…because lo! The M.E. has retreated again. How? Why? No idea. But at the moment, 8.30 am, I'm feeling fine. A bit sleepy but not ME-ish. How do I know this? I cast my attention around my head, and can feel that the fog has shifted. I'm not positively thinking when I do this casting around; just sending a little shaft of focus around my brain. But somehow I can tell that it has turned up for work again.

Strangely, I sometimes have a feeling of gratitude associated with the M.E. For a start, all I get is exhausted. Some people have terrible headaches or joint pains, and heaven knows what else. This of course leads one to wonder what on earth 'M.E.' is, if it can present in so many different ways. Personally, I think it's just a name made up in desperation by the medics, as a great big blanket to throw over a raft of oddball issues they can't cope with. Thus, perhaps, you really can say that 'M.E' doesn't exist. The effects definitely do exist though, so perhaps what we need is a more careful analysis of the symptoms and a careful re-naming session or two.
Mainly, though, what we need is some sort of understanding of what brings it on.

This gratitude also shows up when I realise that I am currently much better that I have been for twenty years. These days I actually expect to be able to put in a half day's work, most days. I can mow the lawn, saw firewood, and help Anne to beat back the encroachments of Nature. This takes a bit of the work off her, and some of the responsibility, too. She has her own problems and needs all the help she can get. So I'm glad I can do a bit more.

I'm grateful too in an unexpected way. Before the M.E. arrived I was flogging away at all hours, growing top notch veg for an uncaring society, as represented by Tesco and Sainsbury, who paid rock bottom prices for top quality goods. We were pretty well trapped in this unwholesome relationship (I go into more detail of how this trap works in 'Scenes from a Smallholding'.) Was the illness a sort of breakdown brought on by overwork and stress? I think there may be some truth in this.
Anyway… once I'd got over the worst of the exhaustion, I began to read again, for the first time in many years. I remember deciding to read the hardest things I could, to keep my mind alive. This meant, to start with, Colin Wilson and Lyall Watson: books about anomalous events, and sheer weirdnesses, written by responsible writers. This led on to a decision to try to find out what Religion was all about, and why Science wouldn't speak to it. Any why, for heaven's sake, would Science not even talk to psychical researchers? That was ridiculous to my eyes.
So I did a lot of reading on science, religions, psychology, history, psychical research, philosophy, mythology, and anything else I thought might offer an insight.
And I'm very glad I did. I now feel more than a little wiser. In fact… I'm grateful to the M.E. for giving me the time to read and think.

Odd, eh?
And, of course, I'm grateful to the M.E. for making it possible to write my books. If I'd been growing veg all day every day, for peanuts, I could never have found the time to write anything.

It's a mysterious universe, don't you think? 'Grateful for being exhausted'!

I guess it's an example of clouds and silver linings.

Right. So. The M.E. has buggered off again, for which I'm truly thankful today. In fact, I'm grateful for it.
Now let's lift some more of that ivy, and saw a bit more firewood..