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This is a short video of another day on the beach, looking out to the sea. Please take a look and see what you make of it, in the hope that it will add something to your day's or night's contemplation.

It is times like these when we fear or are reluctant to make eye contact.  Fearing that we might see what we are fearful of seeing.  That we are looking into the eyes of an unhappy soul. That they might see the unhappiness in our own soul.  That our eyes might betray the sadness which we do not want to communicate, because we are only too aware that they cannot do anything to remove it.  Not yet, not now. That we must continue to wait, powerlessly, as we risk allowing time to just past by, in our endeavour to 'kill it', quickly.  So that the time when we can be together and happy again, comes by, more quickly.  And then we will probably regret the time which has gone by, which we wanted to 'ill'; which we did not, could not live fully, and which has now become lost time. It is time like these that we fear to look into the eyes of our loved ones, from whom we have been forcefully separated.  Sometimes for reasons which do not appear to make

John Newton wrote Amazing Grace after his 'Damasconian' like conversion to Christianity.  following him, as us humans are apt to do, calling out to god to save him, when the ship he was on, encountered a terrible storm off the coast of Ireland.  Again, as tended to be the case, that debacle was not sufficient to make a 'true devotee Christianity' of Newton.   And it was not until long after he had done his bit as a slave trader, and suffered a serious stroke, that he became more devoted to god and Christianity.  Amazing Grace was not published until 1779, when Newton was 54 years old. In trying to balance the evil he had done.  By contributing towards the development of the African slave trade, Newton also wrote a somewhat weak 'anti-slavery' poem, called the 'Negro Complaint.' I am not about to condemn John Newton for the 'bad' he has done, or praise him for the 'good' he has done.  Just to highlight how people, us humans

If the State does not mind killing and maiming healthy people; if it does not see that as amoral or immoral, not illegal to kill and cripple health people in their thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands.  Then with what credibility, with what  moral or legal legitimacy does it declares or decrees, that it is not moral and legal.   For people who are approaching or have approached the stage where they become either the involuntary or unconscious prisoners of their bodies, should be denied the right to end their lives?  That they should not have the right to make provisions giving others the authority to assist them to leave the world?  After all, it is not so much about 'having life', which is the crucial factor. It is the ability to live it by using it.   While it is the case that you have to have life to live, having life does not mean that you have the ability to live, in a meaningful sense. And then we have the imbecilic law makers making laws forbidding

Probably one of the best and most positive things us humans can do, is to learn from our experiences, the journeys we have made, and to then be able use what we have learnt to inspire others to have even better experiences.  In order to be able to do so, we have to be able to summon and apply our powers to visualise, interpret, analyse, summarise and make appropriate conclusions from what we have experienced.  How well be do so, is likely to be partly a reflection of our ability to 'come out of ourselves' and look into ourselves, as well as how well we are able to empathise with our intended audience. And so it was, that on this Sunday morning, while listening to the BBC's Radio 4 morning service.  With the certain amount of scepticism which I tend to take to it, I was blessed with the rendering of the song, Amazing Grace.  This happens to be one of my favourite songs, being one which, whenever I hear it, commands my attention and my thoughts.  Oftentimes

In a State which values the freedom of the individual, which claims to be compassionate.  Should a person not have the ultimate right, the freedom to take his/her own life.   Or to be able to get the assistance of  willing medical practitioner, to help them to bring to an end, a life which is objectively no longer worth living? Is it not the ultimate freedom a human can have, that he or she is able, without fear or socially induced guilt, to determine the time and manner of their death?  Why should the State be able to decree that a person will deemed to have broken some puny law, if they take their own lives?  Or, having lost the ability to do it themselves, seek the assistance of others to help them to do so? Despite the puerile argument of those who argue that life is sacred. It is clear that life is most sacred to its owner, and that he/she should have the right to give it up, if they so choose to take leave of it.  If, an anytime, it becomes such a burden to them a

In order to deal with the problems and threats which the neglected sections of the population increasingly pose to the decreasing and increasingly fearful elites and law-abiding sections. Force alone will never be sufficient or appropriate to prevent the increase of the disaffected, excluded and organised criminal forces within society.  It has to be accompanied by social systems which encourage people to identify with and share the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship, as well as the economic, political and social benefits.  If this is not being achieved, it is more likely that more people will voluntarily and forcefully have to resort to alternative economic systems.  At a certain point in our lives, our loyalty has to be to the people on whom we depend for our livelihoods and our safety.  If the government cannot, or chooses not to meet these obligations, then its legitimacy is diminished, and is replaced by the alternatvie forces which can meet them.

With these kinds of crimes tending to result in the corruption of most of the political, economic, social and civil life of these areas.  A state which, in the course of time, becomes the 'accepted norm', and one which can only be undone by destroying the very socio-economic and political fabric of these neighbourhoods, as well as others which feed on and perpetuate it.  The extent of the challenge of which can be seen from the fact that, only in moments of madness, will a living system destroy itself. Once they take hold, there is little or no chance of  them being redeemed.  The only effective means of combating this socio-political, and economic evil, it seems, if to prevent them from springing up and taking hold of the people and their villages, towns and cities. Hope generates more hope, while despair generates more despair.  If a city or neighbourhood, even a building, is allowed to fall into a state of dilapidation, it will attracts forces and act