Arguing on the internet does not make the list

However shit things get -and they will likely get shitter before they get better, which may not be in your lifetime- do not cut yourself off from the experience of joy. Just look at the top regrets of the dying. They regret not spending enough time at family gatherings or hiking in nature. Arguing on the internet doesn't make the list. Gordon White

Another thing that will not make the list is spending more time in the office, however when I drive to work in the morning and am frequently overtaken by daredevil drivers who are desperate to get to work, they drive as if going to see their lover in some illicit rendezvous instead of going to a stupid job that probably has no importance in some office staffed by people that they do not get on with.

How do we arrive at some pathetic attitude to life where 40% of the working population of the UK believe that their job has no importance? Not only that, but the job may not last in the technology consuming period that we are now entering.

When do we actually realise what is important surely it should be something that we teach our children? Children need skills such as carpentry, cookery, fixing things, building things, playing musical instruments, dancing, swimming etc. many of these skills contain some form risk like bush craft skills such as fire lighting and using tools and knives. The emphasis on life should be the pursuit of joy and happiness but the system is created in such a way that the focus is on doing what you are pressured to do and I think that for many it is an iron cage.

The ways this is done is through being told to do things that seem completely laudable but the setting that these things are set is the trick. Much is contextual, the devil is in the detail and the hypnosis is in the context, always be careful how things are said to you and how information is phrased, not the detail, more the context.

Things are set to get rather rocky, many things that we think have gone away like the banking crisis have not, there are serious problems with many currencies and political systems and this will become more evident as time goes on. Technology is exacerbating this not helping it; governments will not be able to keep the lid on it. For us as musicians and artists we need to use these skills to open up new possibilities in the way that we work and use our art, to make us happier and for the joy of people that we interact with whether as pupils or audience members.

Vic

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