Epictetus’ Toolkit for a Good Life

Epictetus was the main contributor to the late Stoic Roman philosopher school of which Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were the best-known representatives. His work Enchiridion is a handy pocket guide for a good life according to the Stoic tradition.

One of the foundations of his teaching is that man should make a clear distinction between the feasible and the unfeasible. To the realm of the feasible he considers our feelings, emotions and opinions about the things we go through. To the realm of the unfeasible are the things we go through themselves: changes in material prosperity and honour, health and disease, life and death. Epictetus states that whoever masters the feasible, will be equanimous towards the unfeasible and therefore he will be happy.

While writing this, it struck me that postmodern man has an almost opposite view on the feasibility of things. He considers his possession, his health and his personal safety as belonging to the realm of the feasible, whereas he keeps shouting, in this age of endless self-expression, he can’t do anything about his feelings, emotions and opinions. By sticking to this inverted view on the feasibility of things, postmodern man actually follows the perfect recipe for unhappiness as we can see from the full therapist waiting rooms.

Epictetus considers possession, fame, health and safety (the unfeasible) as belonging to the authority of the gods. He recommends people to become philosopher, to accept the godly decisions and to believe they happen for the greater good. As such, we should remain respectful towards our gods, we should neither be upset from injury nor from insults against us, we should neither engage in gossip nor in judgement. (Surprisingly, we should not even engage in praise towards third parties according to Epictetus – I still need to think why not.)

The Enchiridion is really another Swiss army knife for a Good Life and I intend to keep it in my travel bag for interrupted reading in public places. This theme is also related to Hartmut Rosa’s book about unavailability.

The Measure of a Man

This autobiography of Sidney Poitier is certainly worth reading. First, it sheds an interesting light on the conditions in which a black man could reach the top in the Hollywood film industry. Being raised in a poor tomato farmer environment on the Bahamas, in a simple, almost idyllic environment where everyone was poor, he hadn’t undergone the ‘conditioning’ in the back ghettos in American suburbs. In spite of the racial tensions and the underlying social injustice, he never felt inferior and could keep up a modest pride as a human being to be respected. In this way, he developed a ‘character’ of authenticity and integrity in full accordance with the actor roles the film industry needed at that time. He testifies he wasn’t that much aware of his race before he left his idyllic youth environment on the Bahamas as a young man.

The other reason why this book is worth reading resides in the title. What is the measure of a man, the author asks himself. We know we should be mild on people. Do we have the right and the capability to take the measure of a man? The author refers to his father, who repeatedly claimed the measure of a man resides in his ability to provide for his children. As his father was a poor man, he certainly must have meant provision in the material sense, but it was much more than that. It was also the education he gave and his example of a decent life in courage and integrity. Sidney Poitier sees the greatest part of his father’s legacy as the knowledge that in discipline and commitment lies hope. Nevertheless, Poitier remains realistic enough to see this will not solve all problems in society.

We tend to measure a man by his income. As a result, we live in idolatry for billionaires. The measure of a (wo)man should actually be estimated by what (s)he brings to society, not by what (s)he gets from society.

It seems like Poitier's education didn't burden him too much with status anxiety. I also refer to my Dutch blog Elitaire of egalitaire samenleving?

The Legacy of Dag Hammarskjöld

63 Years ago on September 18^th, 1961, UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash near Ndola in Zambia. The plane crash happened in suspicious circumstances. The TV documentary “Cold Case Hammarskjöld” sheds some light on these circumstances, but the truth remains hidden in secret circles and may never be revealed. Whatever happened, Dag Hammarskjöld is a person worth remembering because of his unwavering integrity and his willingness to do the right thing. There is no doubt about his good intentions. He surely wanted to bring peace and justice to the people of central Africa.

His legacy also includes his writings. His book Vägmärken or Markings reveals a vulnerable soul, willing to bring sacrifices for the greater good of mankind. He was a man of great spirituality.

His death was predicting the misery central Africa would go through in the years after and up until this day. May his remembrance be a stimulus for bringing peace to this part of the world.

Beatus vir qui sperat in eo – Blessed is the man who puts his hope in Him.

I also refer to my blog: Truth and Justice are not found through Alliances

On the Origin of Time

This book by professor Thomas Hertog reveals the latest discoveries made in theoretical physics and cosmology. The author summarises his latest discoveries with Stephen Hawking of which Stephen could not see the publication anymore.

So far, reading an exciting book and not being able to put it down only happened to me with fiction books. It is the first time this happens to me with a nonfiction book. The book reveals the history of our universe and our time and the story is so fascinating not only because of the findings themselves but also because of the way the researchers got there.

It looks like existence, creation and evolution are one and the same trinity. Our universe and its evolution are not carved in stone but in soft qubits, the measurement of which is affected by us observers, carriers of truckloads of qubits ourselves. Not all concepts are easily accessible but the author made a wonderful attempt as he is a good storyteller too. People who can combine the highest level of scientific research with good science popularising skills deserve the greatest admiration.

I refer to my English blogs on science, my Dutch blogs on science (not a translation of the English blog) and to Deus Absconditus (not a blog about science, rather about our tradition concerning our creation).

Onbeschikbaarheid – Unverfügbarkeit – Unavailability

Hartmut Rosa sharply describes tendencies in society that are typical for our time. We know him from his book Beschleunigung about the increasing pace of life in society. In this book Unverfügbarkeit, he explores how contemporary citizens deal with availability and unavailability of things and experiences. He explains how the new categorical imperative sounds like everyone should maximise his reach in the world. He should maximise his possession; he should maximise his impact; he should maximise his fame and maximise his ‘experiences’ in this world. Many things can be explained from other typical features of our time such as the fear of status loss (status anxiety) and the fear of being dumped into the losers’ pit of oblivion due to the power of the Matthew effect.

The author sharply observes the behaviour of city citizens. Like spoilt children they behave ‘blasé’ and cool. They do their utmost to give the impression they can never get impressed by anything. This leads to a kind of numbness and a kind of despair. If everyone performs the impossible to get recognition and nobody is prepared to give anyone else recognition, this leads to a society full of desperate losers. Moreover people tend to seek their happiness in material meaningless differences yet at the same time they can never be happy and remain restless after any material achievement, which happens to be temporary by nature.

Looking for unique experiences, we will always fail if we don't allow the resonant spaces in between the races we run daily. Always looking for news on our smartphone, we succeed in killing every authentic experience. Believing everything should be reachable and feasible, we fail in being grateful for anything achieved. If something goes wrong and proves to be unfeasible, we blame other people, we always find someone guilty and someone to be liable for today’s imperfections of society.

A book worth reading for all people interested in understanding the signs of our times.

I refer to my blogs Disaster and Sin and The Thin Grey Line between the Feasible and the Unfeasible.

Work

James Suzman’s book title sounds to us like an order. This is exactly the subject of this book. How did we get to today’s attitude towards ‘work’, including our work ethic?

The author starts with nature. Work dissipates energy and increases entropy in accordance with the laws of nature. Strange things happen: male masked weavers (birds) make and break their nests endlessly for no other apparent reason than to show off for the female masked weavers. The energy they dissipate in doing this is in no relation to the functional outcome of their work.

The author then considers work in an anthropological view. Our ancestor hunter gatherers only ‘worked’ for meeting their instant needs. It is through the agricultural revolution that man started working for meeting his future needs and it is at that point that slavery originated. The author then describes the evolution of ‘work’ and its meaning in the industrial revolution with the intellectual contributions of people like Thomas Robert Malthus, Benjamin Franklin, John ‘Saint’ Lubbock, John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith.

The author points to a few aberrations in society’s attitude towards work. The agricultural and industrial revolutions have brought us to a certain work ethos and a corresponding belief in merit as the right measure for work reward. Yet the highest earners are not the hardest workers but the largest owners of assets, being thereby the largest receivers of dividends and bonusses. It is not the labour effort that pays off, but the market value of the ‘work’ one seems to offer to society. Other related aberrations are the silly ‘war for talent’ and the cases of karoshi in Japan.

The author also points to Parkinson’s law according to which work inevitably expands to fill the time available for its completion. Bureaucracies will always generate enough internal work to justify their existence. Many people don’t have meaningful work anymore but fill their time with the rope of their house mortgage around their neck. The author concludes that many of our core assumptions about economy and work are an artifact of our past and we could free us from them to imagine and create a better future.

I refer to my blogs: Ode to Industry, Full Time could be Less and Revolution is in the Air.

Against the Tide

This book is a posthumous anthology of Roger Scruton's writings, edited by Mark Dooley. Roger Scruton was an eminent British conservative thinker. Conservatism in his opinion is the awareness that many of the good things we enjoy now, are actually the fruit of self-sacrifice from our predecessors and therefore they require protection. It is self-evident that in times of change, this protection is highly needed.

The term sacrifice is all too often associated with abuse and exploitation, whereas sacrifice is actually essential to achieve anything worth pursuing. The mainstream press associates conservatism with populism, as this press considers itself progressive. Conservative thinkers like Roger Scruton also emphasise the fact that citizenship involves obligations for the people who reside here. Therefore also the benefits should return to the people who reside here.

By living among freedom fighters in Eastern Europe before 1989, the author became aware of the transforming effect of sacrifice on the human character. He explains the resistance of countries like Poland and Hungary against Europe. European institutions have no soul and their bureaucracy resembles the bureaucracy of the old communist party. Europe, Quo Vadis?

The author rightfully complains about the destructive work of postmodernism (my wording). The spoilt post-war children sneer at our ideals but never understood why we needed them. Truth, virtue and beauty no longer seem to exist. Our society can never degenerate to a point where vice alone has a following. “When we start to celebrate ugliness, we become ugly too”.

Roger Scruton is extremely critical against modern pedagogy. He detests the jargon created by ‘people who can neither write with skill nor read with understanding’. He is not willing to adopt the art of taking offence, the ‘woke’ or witch-hunt culture, which dominates the social media. He doesn't deny the possibility of injustice but he unmasks the sociologists who detect structural violence behind all power exercised, even power that is a legitimate outcome of consent and compromise.

Scruton also asks why holiness has not retained its meaning to us. Christian faith is now covered with ridicule by trivialising materialists and sarcastic cynics but as the author points out: Christian religion exactly teaches us to accept ridicule. The validity of the Christian message can never be affected by what others think or do. Those who read my blogs from time to time, know that this is a central theme for me.

I refer to my blog The Honour of Humiliation and The Chasm between Populists and Academics. Roger Scruton is also one of the thinkers in the Dutch book Denkers van vandaag voor de wereld van morgen.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

A successive story of the future after Homo Deus. Yuval Noah Harari describes the challenges we face in the twenty first century when biotechnology and artificial intelligence will change the world we live in. Workers may not only become redundant; they may become irrelevant for the socio-economic system, much like horses became irrelevant in the economy at the beginning of the 20^th century. A tiny meritocratic elite could push everyone else into irrelevance and oblivion. The problem is exactly that our merit is only based on work and money.

Another phenomenon is the globalisation. It looks like people are still in need of some stronghold related to their identity. Is it worth re-empowering the nation state? Or should we reconsider our ancient religious traditions? Or is it too late for all that? One of the strongest points of this book is the accurate analysis of the political issues in Europe like the immigration issues and the tensions between the member states.

If machines can produce all we need, couldn’t we all benefit? Could we consider UBI – Universal Basic Income, the taboo subject of all rich conservatives? Taking care of people, be it children, elderly or disabled people, should indeed be considered a job and should be rewarded in some way.

Yuval Noah Harari also points to ethical dilemma’s related to new technologies like self-driving cars. What if you can configure the decision mechanisms when the car faces a dilemma between protecting the driver and protecting other road users?

Religions should take humility more seriously. They should stick to their commandment not to use the name of God in vain. That would already block abuse of religions for worldly affairs like war.

It is extremely hard to discover the truth when you are ruling the world. Yuval Noah Harari doesn’t believe in a real autonomous authentic self. We are all subject to manipulation from our environment. Our brain is trained to be programmed by what happens around us. Becoming aware of this, is a first step to wisdom.

As we are good story-telling creatures, can we come up with a good story that holds us together and gives us an identity? It should be a story that gives everyone a role to play and extends beyond our horizon. It should be bigger than ourselves. Perhaps space travel, inspired by ancient myths could be considered, but the story is yet to be written.

The University of Leuven organises Lectures of the 21st century since several years now and the summaries are often inspiring for my blogs. I also refer to the Why of Technology.

Alles Leben ist Eins

This book written by Renée Weber carries the subtitle: “the Encounter of Quantum Physics and Mysticism”. It is a compilation of interviews with renowned scientists and thinkers, such as David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Ilya Prigogine, the Dalai Lama and Krishnamurti. The starting point is that scientific rigorism forbids us to pursue more hypothetical theories about the coherence between matter and meaning or about the possibility of consciousness at other abstraction levels of our existence. However, it is in humankind’s DNA to wonder about our origins, to search for a meaning in life and to speculate about our destiny.

Looking at recent scientific findings, be it in astrophysics or life sciences, can make us stand in awe (Deutsch: Ehrfurcht, Nederlands: ontzag) for the beauty of science. I believe it also makes us humble. A first finding is that ‘Gods book’ has been written with the letters of mathematics, which is already amazing when you think about it. Why do we have laws of nature that can be expressed or approximated with mathematical equations? A second finding is that we are ‘star stuff contemplating the stars’ and therefore we seem to constitute a part of the universe’s awareness. Carl Sagan was not a mystic, but he could certainly bring his audience in the same spiritual awe we are considering here.

What if awareness exists in many levels of our existence, even in the subtle, at first sight incomprehensible behaviour of small parts in quantum mechanics? Can matter and meaning be separated from each other? What is the nature and the meaning of light, probably still the largest mystery in physics? Are we seeing only the ‘holographic image’ of a multidimensional universe? If the laws of nature have not always been the same, could it happen they adapt with the universe’s evolution?

For scientists these questions may seem very unscientific. Stephen Hawking even claimed mysticism is only an excuse to those who are not able to understand the fundamental physics of the cosmos. On the other hand, admiration, sense of beauty and awe are human state of minds we can experience without the obligation to adhere to one or the other kind of belief. Perhaps they are the salt and pepper we need to give a taste to our work and our life.

The book was given to me by a former employer company manager and friend, who proved in this way that he knew me better than I could imagine.

I also refer to Homo Deus and to my Dutch blog: ‘Verdwaald in de werkelijkheid’.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

This story, originally written by Washington Irving in the 18th century, is very similar to Rip Van Winkle. It also takes place in the peaceful rural environment of Dutch colonists, in and around early New Amsterdam or New York. It is written in the same colourful English.

The village of Tarry Town or Sleepy Hollow is a place where superstition and mystery are part of daily life. It is notorious for the legend of the headless horseman, sometimes called Major André, a decapitated soldier who is believed to chase people in search of his lost head. The highly educated Ichabod Crane comes from the city and is supposed to bring reason and order in Tarry Town as the local teacher.

Ichabod falls in love with the 18-year old Katrina Van Tassel, the well-rounded daughter of a wealthy Dutch settler. He faces tough competition though, as Brom van Brunt, the local sturdy guy, also wants to court the lovely Katrina. On the dramatic evening when Ichabod asks for the hand of the lovely Katrina, he seems to be turned down and needs to drive home through the area where the headless horseman reigns. When he actually encounters the headless horseman, he rides for his life, and falls from his horse before he can reach the bridge that should have led him to safety. The story has a completely open end. It just describes the scene the next day. Only Ichabod's hat and his saddle remain. Ichabod is never seen again in the area. The scene suggests that Brom van Brunt may have abused Ichabod’s superstition to scare him off for life. (By the way, the 1999 Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, doesn't follow the book 'by the book'.)

The story is a hilarious confrontation between the rational city education and the superstitious country life. This is a personal opinion, but I suspect Irving's character Ichabod is based on an acquaintance of his, perhaps even a political enemy. The 'morale of the story' is not so obvious as in Rip Van Winkle. There is a short epilogue written by Irving in which he denies there is no morale to the story. True or not: there is certainly wisdom at hand. He writes: “He who races with goblin troopers, is likely to have a rough ride.” And “He who …..loses the hand of a Dutch settler's daughter, may enjoy the preferment of the state”. The basic idea is that there is always an advantage at every disadvantage. This is a very Dutch thought...and it makes me happy.

Purgatory

In this apocalyptic year 2020, you may wonder what to do during your last days in this valley of tears, right before the ultimate cataclysm, the coming of God's Wrath, Dies Irae.

Perhaps you could enjoy your last book. Purgatory is Guido (Walter) Eekhaut's next crime case after Absinthe. Like in many crime books and television series, the successive episodes build upon the same good guys (with characterising weaknesses), in this case Eekhaut, Dewaal, Prinsen and Van Gils. As the bad guys usually end up in jail or grave, they may need to be replaced.

Amsterdam is again the city of crime to the detriment of good old Leuven town, Eekhaut's home base. To compensate for this, there is a lot of good food and dark Leffe beer in the story. As the title suggests, religious-sectarian zeal plays a driving role in the crime scene and from time to time, the main characters tend to express their opinion about the place of religion in society, something I always find most interesting.

The stories would fit well in a violent, gruesome Scandinavian crimi on Canvas on a Saturday evening. Anyway, after Liège, also our Leuven town can now claim to have its commissaire Maigret.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On April 9th, 1945, today 74 years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in concentration camp Flossenbürg, only two weeks before its liberation by the U.S. Army.

Some years ago, I bought this small booklet “Worte für jeden Tag”, with quotes and extracts from Bonhoeffer’s work. His writings bear witness to an enormous spiritual strength. It is amazing how a single man could show such individual resistance against a totalitarian system. To overcome the internal doubt and the fear and yet keep following the right path requires a huge faith.

We should not admire Bonhoeffer because of his forlorn fate; his enemies had determined this for him. We should admire him for his spirituality, for being consequent in his resistance against mainstream and his incredible persistence. Even if we can’t condemn people for not having had his strength at that time, the attitude of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the only real weapon against new successful types of barbarism.

Belonging to a protestant church himself, Bonhoeffer somehow unites Christians of all traditions. Many Catholics cherish his words and venerate him like a saint. Let us hope he will at least receive his deserved attention next year, when the end of the war will be 75 years behind us.  Beatus vir qui sperat in eo - Blessed is the man who puts his hope in Him.

I refer to “The Siren Songs of Simplicity” and to my Dutch blogs: “Titus Brandsma” and “Hannah Arendt”.

The Legacy of Stephen Hawking

On March 14^th, 2018, exactly one year ago, the world lost one of the most colourful scientists of the last 50 years. March 14 is also known as π –day and it happened to be the birthday of Albert Einstein.

I’m reading a Stephen Hawking book every decade since 30 years now. Stephen Hawking was not only popular because of the area in which he worked: black holes, theoretical physics and cosmology. He was also popular because he was the most remarkable example of how a man could overcome his handicap and become extremely successful. He also attracted media attention and became popular with the general public, even if few people could really understand his discoveries. Even after having studied the basics of thermodynamics, relativity and quantum mechanics, I have difficulty imagining what could be the meaning of the entropy of a black hole. The late professor ir. Theo Van der Waeteren at KU Leuven could have said: “How amazing the number π pops up in this equation!”. (His former students will understand.)

In his latest book, Stephen Hawking also writes about the great questions of the universe. He suggests the mathematical laws of the universe are such that the universe could have originated from  … nothing. In other words, science no longer needs a prima causa, a first little godly spark to ignite the big bang. Our universe would be some kind of natural unfolding of mathematical equations. He also addresses the future of mankind, such as the environmental problems, the need to travel through space and the emergence of artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation.

What a constructive contribution to society this is! Throughout the different books I have been reading, I could discern some evolution in this rich personality. Our world has become a little smarter and wiser through Stephen Hawking.

Ref: “De erfenis van Hawking” in Karakter 63 by Prof. Thomas Hertog. I also refer to my blogs "Making Science accessible to All" and “Finding Exoplanets”.

Making Science Accessible to All

On December 20^th, 1996, Dr. Carl Sagan passed away after having lived the life of a successful astronomer. Carl Sagan had become a celebrity because of his brilliant television series Cosmos.

Sagan made science accessible and comprehensible to all. I watched his television series Cosmos at the age of 16-17 years, and this opened my mind to science and to the universe in general. Later I read his books Broca’s Brain and the Dragons of Eden. Cosmos was not only about the stars, it also described life on earth and potential life on other planets. It talked about the history of science and of the great discoveries on earth and in the universe.

There is no nobler and more beautiful work than popularising science. Sagan could also raise enthusiasm with his audience. He testified from a certain spirituality of science, something that I still seem to live from today. What is this spirituality of science? It means that we can stand in awe for the cosmos and its beauty. This also includes the inherent beauty of the laws of the cosmos, so we can also stand in awe for science itself.

Sagan did not deny that the Cosmos could not become a threat someday, as the laws of nature can also lead to cataclysms and to the end of humankind. He didn’t deny the inherent timeliness of our presence and the vulnerability of humans on this planet and in the universe. In this space age, science and technology, including space travel, seem to become ordinary commodities. People tend to become cynical and indifferent.

We need more people like Carl Sagan to encourage young people to enter the world of science and to stand in awe for this “Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring”. These were the last words spoken by Sagan in his television series Cosmos, and these words have been resonating in my mind since 36 years now.

I refer to my science blogs among which SETI and Day of Wrath.

Absinthe

Absinthe is a police thriller by Guido Eekhaut. The scene is located in the Low Countries, in the cosmopolitan cities of Amsterdam and Leuven.

It is a story about Russian oligarchs, cold-blooded murderers, right-wing politicians and corrupt policemen, typical ingredients of a Saturday evening whodunit on television and I don't see why this story could not become the script for a television thriller. The plot is certainly solid enough to start with.

The main character Walter Eekhaut is the archetype of the stubborn policeman with unconventional methods (somewhat like Inspector Morse). The author sketches several parallel story lines in short chapters, picturing several individual colourful characters. He then brings these lines together in unexpected events that somehow ignite the story, so that you will not easily stop reading. It was a good idea of the writer to serve this story with a glass of Absinthe as this brings in real warmth and taste into the story.

To enjoy all finesses of the unexpected, the reader needs a certain understanding and feeling for rules and procedures that might be applicable in an international police context. Although the author educates his reader in this sense, the lay reader may miss the unexpected in the denouement and at this point the author might have been too demanding of his readership.

The hardcover edition I bought looks and feels very nice and I could not spot a single error in the text.

Slender Man is a book by the same author. You will find an equally good plot and a similar background view on society, but the narrating technique used in Slender Man is quite different.

The Art of the Good Life

This book carries the ambitious subtitle “52 Simple Shortcuts to Happiness”. When I see such a title in a book shop, I usually look away and don’t touch it. The book may fit well in a typical American book store. People may believe I can’t manage my own life and I may need help.

I had however heard at work of the author Rolf Dobelli and his first book “The Art of Thinking Clearly”. When you open the book, you notice the chapters are short and beautifully illustrated with colourful drawings. It contains a lot of simple but wise advice and it easily invites to further reading.

The book is written from a ‘high society’ perspective and some examples given may not appeal to everyone. With some of the 52 recommendations, you might even disagree, but I bet most people will agree with at least 48 out of 52 recommendations. I discovered that the joy of reading is also related to the fact that you were already aware of some of the pitfalls of postmodern life and you might even have taken measures already to overcome them.

You will find some of these pitfalls/ recommendations in previous blogs “The Delusion of Immanent Justice”, “Status Anxiety”, “Meritocracy”, “On Optimism and Pessimism”.  This book is a good Swiss army knife for a good life.

Homo Deus

It has been a long time since I could read a book with an original vision on the future, far from the stereotype mainstream visions you can find in the social media. Prof. Yuval Noah Harari sketches an imminent transition from humankind to “Homo Deus”, a new species that is superior to our 'mankind', a species that has found the ‘divine’ key to immortality.

Our species Homo Sapiens was still relatively unimportant before a few million years, but due to technology, it could now create a species that is much smarter than its creator. Artificial Intelligence and genetic engineering will play a role in this creation, and I think the author is right in his expectation that, despite the moral objections, Homo Sapiens/ Homo Deus will engineer his future as soon as the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages.

The author points out that Homo Sapiens was not superior to other animals because of his consciousness, but rather because of his ability to mobilise his peers around ideas and stories. If homo sapiens now creates a new species, how will the new species treat homo sapiens? There is an interesting analogy with how homo sapiens treats other animals. The author made me aware that the question is not only how we kill animals, but also how we let them live their life, which is often equally cruel. See my earlier blog: “Animal Harm at Animal Farm”.

Science teaches us that the soul and the free will don’t exist, as they are the simple consequence of biochemical reactions in our brain. I don’t fully agree with these statements. It is true that science has revealed that there is no ‘supernatural’ substance like soul or free will, and indeed, our thoughts and feelings ARE the biochemical reactions and vice versa. But that doesn’t mean that soul and free will don’t exist as abstract notions and even as coherent sets of experienced sensations. The biochemical reactions are the only physical carrier in which the soul ‘resides’, but to say that the soul is just “chemical reactions” comes down to a reduction of the soul (pars pro toto). It denies the higher order coherence of these reactions. In my Dutch blog: “Ziel en lichaam”, I compare the body with computer hardware. The soul is the computer software. Does it make sense to say the software doesn’t exist? I would say no, unless you want to make clear there is no other natural or supernatural substance, which is a relatively recent insight I must admit.

Homo Sapiens embraces a religion of "humanism", meaning that our purpose resides in our own happiness. The “Meaning of Life” or “religion” of Homo Deus on the contrary would reside in the acquisition of data and knowledge, the author calls this new religion "dataïsm". His book suggests that my blog is already a small contribution to the vast and unstoppable ocean of data that is being created on the altar of this new religion.

An interesting note about history was that it makes you understand the past, but also that it can liberate you from your past. But this book is more about the future than about the past. It has the potential to become the futurism cult-book of the decade, very much like “Future Shock” in the seventies. 

About meditation – Die schöne Kunst des Innehaltens

What is meditation? It is one of the most essential activities in life, and yet we get little in education. Meditation is a spiritual activity that drives the human spirit away from fear of the future and anger about the past. It brings the human soul to more gratitude for the “here and now”, to acceptance, compassion and happiness. If you have a religious education, meditation resembles praying and contemplation, but in meditation, we don’t need to talk and in a certain way, we don’t even need to think, we prefer silence. Just like sports, it is good for body and soul, but it also requires time and regular practice. Meditation is becoming popular and there are plenty of methods and courses offered.

A near colleague of mine offered me this excellent book from Christophe André (the original title is ‘Méditer, jour après jour’). This book is really a work of art. Every chapter shows a beautiful painting, perfectly chosen to describe a state of mind. The author guides the reader’s attentiveness through the details of the paintings to bring him to a new awareness about an important matter in life, such as accepting, letting go or loving. I learned about the difference between “Aufmerksamkeit” (focused, analytical attention) and “Achtsamkeit” (wide attention for the environment, attentiveness, mindfulness).

The book also contains two audio CD’s with meditation guidance. The refined finish of the book is a joy in itself. You can open it at any chapter and start reading; the order in which you read the chapters is not so important. This book will find a fixed spot in my mental living room.

In these borderline times, where traffic and computers offer a thousand opportunities to get upset, meditation may be a good prevention of illness, despair, addiction or dependence. It shows that beautiful things invented thousands of years ago, always come back, no matter how we ignore them in daily life.

Future Shock

Who remembers this book? Future Shock by Alvin Toffler was published in 1970 and became a world-wide bestseller. My father's copy dates from August 1981 and I read it a few years later, around the time I finished secondary school.

The pocket edition counts 490 pages. The English is well-written. The table of contents is nice to read: it counts many well-chosen subtitles, like "Flamenco in Sweden", "The Paper Wedding Gown" and "The Mournful Movers".

The book is not a utopian description of how the future should be, but  rather a futurist description of how it will be. The title Future Shock refers to an illness: "Just as the body cracks under the strain of environmental overstimulation, the 'mind' and its decision processes behave erratically when overloaded. By indiscriminately racing the engines of change, we may be undermining not merely the health of those least able to adapt, but their very ability to act rationally on their own behalf".

Alvin Toffler's vision on economists is still very relevant today: "The year 2000 is closer to us (in 1970!) than the Great Depression, yet the world's economists, traumatised by that historic disaster, remain frozen in the attitudes of the past....If it were possible to pry from their brains their collective image of the economy of, say, the year 2025, it would look very much like that of 1970-only more so."

Many family tendencies like gay marriage are already anticipated in this book. Toffler also writes: "Men and women today are often torn in a conflict between a commitment to career and a commitment to children."

Concerning politics, Toffler writes: "We are rushing toward a fateful breakdown of the entire system of political representation. If legislatures are to survive at all, they will need new links with their constituencies, new ties with tomorrow."

The odd thing is that this book doesn't mention mobile phones and internet. In those days, the fax was the emerging communication technology! Nevertheless, Alvin Toffler imagines a machine called OLIVER, read the extract below and compare with our Internet.

We can conclude that most of today's general tendencies were already emerging long ago, longer ago than we tend to believe today. On the other hand, the specific technical developments and especially the order in which they spread over the world, seemed much harder to predict.

Utopia - Thomas More

In 1516, exactly 500 years ago, Sir Thomas More published his “Utopia”, actually a seafarer’s story in which an ideal society is portrayed. Utopia, ancient Greek for “no-place” or nowhere, is a word that stands since then for the society we can only dream about, but which we will never be able to realise. It is worth reading the Utopia, the society vision is surprisingly modern. In Utopia we find equality between all people, education for men and women, six hour working days, distribution of wealth based on needs rather than on power, selection of public officials based on competence and an early vision on social security.

There is yet another reason why the Utopia is so interesting. We have lost the capability of dreaming and imagining. Yet you need a vision if you want to move forward. Whether it is at the political, the economic or the social level, we need new visions on how our society could work in the future. This would also make sense at a more technical level, where we urgently need to improve our urban planning and construct ‘smart cities’, so that our quality of life can become acceptable again. (I believe it is not acceptable today.)

As the first “Utopia” was printed on Dirk Martens’ press in 1516 in my home town Leuven. I can recommend you to come and visit the wonderful Utopia exhibition in the town museum and in the university library (picture).

I refer to my more extensive Dutch blog “Utopia - Thomas More”, written 4 years ago.