Meanderings….. What’s it all about?

Okay! I’ve been threatening myself to do this for a long time, so here it comes!

The original idea was to write a book about my understanding of Douglas Adams’ now-proverbial “Life, the Universe, and Everything”. It was to take the shape of a collection of “essays”, interlinked and cross-referenced by topic. Note that “essays” is in inverted commas. That’s because they won’t follow the classical essay format of “introduction, three arguments, conclusion”. They are meandering in name and in nature, and hopefully uncover some ideas and truths in the process.

Life discussions like that can become very complicated on some levels, so that any statement needs to be clarified, explored, and elaborated on, just to make sure that a) the intended meaning is clear to the reader and b) the argument has truly been investigated by the author. Hence the uncharted course. I hope to learn much as the project goes along.

The whole thing started some years ago with another idea that stemmed from a Douglas Adams character. Dirk Gently, holistic detective, believes in “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”. The more I have come to know of the everyday world, the more I agree. A short chapter on each of a few everyday topics, with links to other relevant short chapters, seemed like an accessible way to get the concept across. What started out as a simple mind-map to get some of those connections on paper, became an A3 size spread of circles and lines (see below) that forced me to realise that I simultaneously know too much, and too little. I couldn’t possible write a book. This is that book, albeit in a different form.

Meanwhile, time had moved on from the book days. A hypercard stack then appeared like a great way to modernise the idea, but they have gone the way of the dodo, too. Now it seems like a blog is the best bet, publishing each section as it’s written. Hyperlinks can tie it all together and, with luck, I may be able to draw the whole thing into a unified whole and create a good, old-fashioned book. Full circle.

About the title. Being not qualified in anything in any formal sense can be an impediment to credibility and publication. So it’s out there – I’m unqualified. Also unqualified are these meanderings, mostly. The research and evidence is largely informal and unreferenced, and obtained from “reliable” internet sources and/or books. That doesn’t mean that every effort hasn’t been made to sort the wheat from the chaff, but this is by no means an academic treatise. The third part of the title is a nod to most of society, who have enquiring minds, opinions and ideas that go largely unnoticed.

And my own saying, born in a moment of herbal enlightenment many years ago, is relevant: “The plan is, there is no plan. So everything’s going according to plan”.

That mind-map consists of seven major topic circles, spawning a hundred minor, related and interconnected topics – see below. There may well be more before this is over. In alphabetical order, because in accordance with Dirk Gently’s philosophy, none is more important than any other, they are:

Culture, Economics, Energy, Environment, Future, Population, and War

Between these topic circles are lines representing the interconnectednesses. Funny, but way down in the lower right-hand corner is “Human Consciousness. What/Why?”. As so often in life, it’s the question that’s skulking around the edges, almost too afraid to come onto centre stage for close examination. We’ll see.

Even a cursory look at those seven major topics gives the idea of interconnectedness. For instance, War has an enormous impact on Economics (good or bad, depending on your position relative to the conflict). It consumes huge amounts of energy, and is often fought over energy resources – such irony. Much of culture, historical and contemporary, is shaped by war, as is the future, the size and make-up of the population within that future, and the environment that population inhabits. Get the idea? The minor topics are catalysts in exploring these relationships in more detail.

There may be a few opinions thrown in from time to time, too. Quite a few, actually. So please feel free to comment. Happy to hear readers’ ideas and alternatives. They may just spark other lines of thought and discussion, so please, get amongst it.

In fact, even while re-reading this before hitting the “publish” button, it strikes me that there are a couple of glaring omissions; Ethics, and Love. Stand by for further bulletins on those.

But first up, let’s start in the middle of the list – Environment. That is the place where the rest of the action takes place so, for want of a better reason, it seems the most appropriate kick-off point. My aim is to push out a post per week. Let’s go….