Sunday

Pat posed a question yesterday about the tragedy of the little boy looking stunned on the ambulance chair  that filled the media the other day and why was war such a part of the human tragedy.  My answer is that there is no answer.  Humans have always been the same, as I read in a book this morning,we are not far removed from our brethren the apes, aggression is instinctive, and especially when mixed up with religion that is a savage mix. And then there was also this little story that came out of it.  From Alan Garner's Boneland.....

"Vishnu is crying.  And along comes Hanuman, Alpha Bootes, the monkey god, and he says "why are you crying? and what are all those ants down on the Earth so excited about?" "They are not ants" say Vishnu.  "They're people.  I was holding the Jewel of Absolute Wisdom; and I dropped it; And it fell into the world and broke.  Everybody down there has got a tiny splinter of it; but they each think they've got the whole thing, and they're all running around and telling each other, but no one is listening"

Tis a good metaphor of how we see ourselves, the 'self' are in the end 'selfish' all knowing when in actual fact we are just a bag of cells held together by skin same as the animals around us ;). Wisdom is not a given trait of being human it is acquired by thinking and probably by having the facts set out before us.  But who will do this job? Well why not philosophers, a third chamber in the houses of parliament seems to me a good starting point!

In the end we become emotionally involved with the events around us the hard part is to accept that we can do little about them, people do of course, those refugees camping out in Calais there are people from this country going out starting schools, taking essential things. Medicin Sans frontiere  is at the frontiers working in hospitals at the sharp end, giving their expertise and their lives for the good of others.  

But the question should we sit down with the leaders of IS, now that I find a very hard question, anger at such cruelty that has been visited upon people in Syria and Iraq would not be easily overcome, religious fervour has a lot to answer for.  And then when I look at the papers, this point of negotiation is completely swamped by the internal feud in the Labour party between Smith and Corbyn.  It is NOT important this feud, masterminded by disgruntled Labour politicians, ordinary people have voted for Corbyn because they are sick of the old political system - wow we need a new system, get over it!  Oops starting to rant, so I shall close with a photograph ......

Blue damselflies mating