The Simulacra

I’m going to take a break from the blog for the next few months. I don’t feel in the right place for writing at the moment, and I know the coming months are going to be really hectic, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a break and think about what I want The Simulacra to be and where I want to take it next. I might post something now and then, but I probably wont be writing regularly again until the summer. The best way to know if I’ve written anything is to subscribe to the feed (If you don’t know what that is, you can learn about feeds here). Thanks for reading; I’ll be back soon…

Over the past few months I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library, so I thought I’d write a post about the nature of ‘the library’ and what it means to me. My somewhat rose tinted view of libraries looks a bit like this, constructed through the libraries I have read about in Discworld books and Borges’ Library of Babel, which is described as follows:

When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon [shelf]. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future.

A place which differs somewhat from my university library.

Still, as I sit there daydreaming I’m thinking of how many of the great thinkers whom I have taken ideas from would have spent years surrounded by similar bookshelves hacking away at the questions of the universe. Being surrounded by such vast amounts of knowledge and history instills ideals of intellectual mastery and progression in me,  but also makes me realise that even if I was to devote my life purely to learning from this day forth I’d barely even get through a shelf or two.

It humbles me as an individual; were I to write a book it would be but a drop in ocean amongst the billions of words contained on the sprawling shelves. Here in the library is the most important history of the human race, the ideas of mankind put to print and presented in their insurmountable glory; so much material yet infinitely lacking when compared with what has never been documented. Our efforts to record and explain the cosmos, the human experience, so neatly contained within a building. There’s a long way to go.

I love the power of the cold on my face. All my thoughts can’t bring me warmth, all my barriers to the outside fail when confronted with the needs of my body.

I don’t handle the cold well, my frame isn’t designed for extremes. In fact, both my flesh and my mind are always less resilient than I imagine. I need peace and quiet and calm to write, hence the lack of updates; more than that I need vast amounts of time to think and organise my thoughts, something I’ve not had for months now. But that’s ok. I’m finding it exciting to be constantly unsure of where I am and where I’m going; I’m finding value in places I hadn’t expected, I’m skating on the waters where I used to swim. Maybe I’ll have a chance to organise my intentions when I’m home for Christmas; hedonism takes many forms, as I am discovering…

So much for structure, if anything I’ve gone the other way.

More words soon. 

I’m taking a break from writing for a few weeks, back soon.

I’m growing into the idea that a good death is not so much a death where I have chosen the time and place, but where I have some level of control over the event. I used to believe the best way to die was in the setting of my making, my choosing; not necessarily suicide, but where it’s me that pulls the trigger (metaphorically, or even literally).

For example I used to fear drowning, or death-by-flames, and I am obviously still not exactly joyful about the idea of dying in these ways, not least because of the physical pain involved. However I no longer fear the isolation and ‘inhumanity’ of this type of death. My previous ‘death of choice’ would be the jump from a cliff or the envelopment in a fireworks factory explosion.

Clarification: When I talk about control over the event I am meaning mental control more than physical control (although this can play a part). To be able to stand there and think ‘I am ready to die, I accept death’, that is the good death. To have a constant awareness that death is real, death will come, and death is likely the second most important event in your life.

However it happens, don’t fear the reaper; ‘Fear is the mind killer’ as F. Herbert would say.

From Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a (brilliant and witty) story about a man who turns into a woman, this bit is set around 1750:

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. For example, when Captain Bartolus saw Orlando’s skirt, he had an awning stretched for her immediately, pressed her to take another slice of beef, and invited her to go ashore with him in the long–boat. These compliments would certainly not have been paid her had her skirts, instead of flowing, been cut tight to her legs in the fashion of breeches. And when we are paid compliments, it behoves us to make some return. Orlando curtseyed; she complied; she flattered the good man’s humours as she would not have done had his neat breeches been a woman’s skirts, and his braided coat a woman’s satin bodice. Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. So, having now worn skirts for a considerable time, a certain change was visible in Orlando, which is to be found, even in her face. If we compare the picture of Orlando as a man with that of Orlando as a woman we shall see that though both are undoubtedly one and the same person, there are certain changes. The man has his hand free to seize his sword, the woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. The man looks the world full in the face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion. Had they both worn the same clothes, it is possible that their outlook might have been the same.

In our image-centred society, clothes are a big deal. A good percentage of the high street seems to be clothes shops, or at least shops whose core product is clothing. Why do we spend so much money on clothing? What makes us buy the particular style of clothes we choose to wear?

I’ve always gone for the fairly straight edge bland clothing look, mainly because I don’t have the guts (or funds) to walk around in a pinstripe suit with slacks, a bowler hat and a cane, which is my ultimate aim, but also just out of laziness and my dislike of shopping-centre shopping. I do think clothing choice says a lot about the wearer, but I’m far more concerned about the post-image stages of human interaction than immediate appearances, so I try not over-emphasise clothing and presentation. I think one of my future ‘projects’ will be to experiment with some different clothing ideas to see how they affect social intercourse.

Although it is a sweeping generalization, I find that within social groups (most obviously when we are young) people want to dress like others, they want to be “in fashion” (in the loosest sense of the phrase), but at the same time nobody wants to be caught wearing exactly the same clothes as somebody else (with a few exceptions). Clothing is a fairly unique product in this sense, that a person wants to look the same and fit in with everyone else, but also wants to be individual and stand out at the same time. Clothes differ from other products, such as an iPod, because everyone has (more or less) exactly the same iPod, and that’s what counts - pure single product ownership. This is why we end up with lots of clothes shops, selling pretty much the same thing, with slight but important differences.

Clothing choice enables us to have a sense of belonging, but also a sense of individuality and uniqueness at the same time; security and freedom; acquiescence, apathy and (in some cases) a platform for communication. All of which are rather fundamental aspects of our lives - aspects which can be expressed and cultivated through our purchases.

[Picture from qube. Check out Rachael King’s post on the same subject.]

Recently I have been feeling a real urgency in my soul, as if now is the time to really get going, the time for change and real unparalleled progress. To a certain extent I always have this feeling around this time of the year as I’m beginning a new university year, a chance to start afresh all over again and really pour myself into the tasks ahead before fatigue and the mundane flow back into me. I’ve written recently about growing in the aesthetic and reconstructing of my aims and ideals, which has happened to me before, but now there’s an urgency and excitement about it that I have not felt before; I imagine it has something to do with the fact this is my last year (probably) at University, my last chance to do things here.

My life is a constant cycle of procrastination, there are so many opportunities all around me for growth and progression, yet I still manage to spend most of my day doing very little. Part of me is ashamed at my lack of energy and application; part of me, to a certain extent at least, believes indolence is necessary and helpful, that the time spent doing ‘nothing’ gives me the space I need to process and subconsciously take hold of the thoughts, feelings and ideas conceived when I am doing ’something’. For example, I probably sleep too much, time that could be spent acquiring knowledge, but sleep helps me sort out the knowledge I have gained during the day meaning I don’t end up getting swamped in an ever deepening pool of information.

In the past I have always reasoned that I need this space, but now I am feeling that this is more an excuse for inactivity than a healthy viewpoint, I start to abuse the balance and become less active as a result. I’ve found that one of the best ways to regain the balance is to have structure; over the summer I often haven’t had commitments during the day which has enabled me to sleep in late, and nap in the afternoon - I justify this by reasoning that I will stay up late and get things done - but then I just head to bed at the normal time. Without structure I fall into a rhythm of lethargy and inaction, it takes far more discipline to get things done when you have no time constraints or set points in your day. I’m hoping now that I am back at university I’ll be able to establish a rhythm of action through the increased structure of the week.

I’ve been reading some ‘life pointers’ from different websites and organisation recently, and many of them seem to contain this recurring idea of structure, control and action, especially that of structuring your day around reflection and introspection, often they just provide a kick up the backside for people to start doing something with their day other than sitting in front of the TV. For example, meditation CDs present a form of structure, to meditate for half an hour a day is a set time of intense introspection and hence intense progress, a time out to think about who you are and what you are doing, a process from which often comes action. Christians grow when they spend alot of time reading scriptures and in spiritual meditation, which is often acheived through structured study. Children have set daily routines to grow and learn discipline; even material-secularism gives us structure though the prevalent ideas of customisation and products to fill every need, the ideal advertisement-presented life involves gym, television, friday night socialisng, ipod on the tube, picking the kids up from school, yearly summer holidays…

As usual, it’s about balance: structure and space.

I wrote a little while ago about how I felt I was maturing in the aesthetic, this growth is coming to a head now, everything around me has taken on a slightly different colour, a slightly different façade. For example, over the summer I have developed a broader range of things which I see as valuable, and have learnt to really look around me and feel the beauty and power contained in normal every-day things; a previously boring walk though my local estate has become a wealth of beauty, history and expanded fiction. I find myself making up stories about the places and people I see, thinking about the history and future of the standard-yet-unique things all around me. As I walk to the shop I’m seeing families and imagining their lives, how they ended up living on this street, where they are going next, how their children will grow up and what sort of world they will inherit.

I’m seeing geometry where I previously saw just buildings, I’m seeing photography where I previously saw just streetlamps to light my way home, I’m seeing waves and oceans in the approaching rainclouds… In some ways this growth has made me more distanced from ‘reality’, I can feel further from the faces that walk past me, more detached from the cultural and political forces pressing upon me, distant from the motives I once had; but in other ways I am closer and more enveloped in what is going on around me than I have ever been, I feel close, involved in a near timeless sense with the omnipresent movement and flow constantly giving birth to life, beauty and death. It’s not as if I’ve found god, or found Gaia, it’s a change within myself rather than a change to the world around me, maybe even the cleansing of another set of doors of perception.

I found this fantastic picture when browsing a stock photography site a little while ago:

I don’t know whether the artist intended to write ‘looser’ or ‘loser’, but I like to imagine he or she spelt it that way on purpose, rather than it just being poor spelling (although this is entirely possible, the graffiti is from Lisbon, Portugal).

I have started dropping it into conversation now and then, if you say it fast enough people don’t catch the last word and it’s interesting to see the different responses you get, whether they interpret it as loser or looser; perhaps when it is ambiguous people are likely to hear the phrase which fits with the philosophy they believe, the christian hears loser, the ardent agnostic hears looser.

At different times in my life, or even from day to day, you could place me into either interpretation. Mostly I believe that you can be more ‘free’ without inflexible dogma, but I also believe in ‘cosmic-objective’ moral truth (as in good and evil are more than bio-evolutionary products); I believe in truth, but my idea of the nature of truth is flexible and constantly being knocked down and rebuilt. A good way to look at it could be “Without a truth you are the loser”, even if that truth is “there is no truth”; the place not to be is that of not caring or not thinking about truth.

As time goes on I find myself less attached to truths I once held dear, especially those of a political or philosophical nature; as I learn more I realise just how limited my knowledge is, I am infinitely ignorant. I have become less eager to subscribe to any ideology or movement or to place myself on the political compass because I don’t want to commit without enough information, but I will never possess enough information. This give me more freedom to criticise and to move between ideas, but also means that I have less constructive ideals of my own to share.

I feel a new direction coming. Maybe it’s just because it is the end of a long summer, but I feel as though things are moving around me again. I’m feeling less attached to things I have been pursuing over the past year or so, as though my self is being emptied ready for something new. I don’t know what’s around the corner yet. I’ll be leaving university in July so I need to think of something to do after that, a ‘career’ of sorts, perhaps it’s the beginning of that process that I am waiting for. I could just feel this way because beautiful autumn is almost here, which is always a time of reflection and introspection, a time to meditate on the busy spring and summer and get things together ready for the winter hibernation.

Many of the things I have pursued over the past few years have given me a lot; I’ve progressed far, learnt much, discovered new things. I don’t want to abandon ideas like philosophy and ethics that I have been passionately investigating, maybe just place these things on the back burner for a while as I pursue something new. It could be that what I find is a renewed passion for these same ideas, most likely I’ll never have a concrete new direction, I’ll just look back in a years time and say ‘Ah, that’s where you were headed then’.

I’ve been learning about the brain over the last few days and it has helped me re-realise the magnificent complexity of the human body and the ethical issues surrounding scientific progress. Resources have been piled into brain research over the past 100 years or so, yet we are still totally clueless about how most of the more complex processes in the brain occur. For example, we don’t really understand long term memory, how the brain processes such vast amounts of information in parallel in such a short amount of time, or why and how certain memories are chosen to be stored and recalled.

On the other hand, I learnt about some amazing things that can be done. For example, we can manufacture passable man made ears, and before too long eyes as well. A scientist called Miguel Nicolelis has done some amazing experiments where a monkey was trained to move a robotic arm using thoughts alone. This involves implanting electrodes right into the brain, which obviously is going to be tricky and expensive to apply in humans; but there are also more limited examples of ‘thought control’ using non-invasive EEG (pads on the head) methods. This has obvious medical applications, such as re-routing thought impulses in paralysed people so they can regain control of their muscles, which is potentially fantastic; but on the other hand the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency have apparently already started looking into such brain-machine interfaces to make killing people even faster.

It all presents interesting ethical questions. Stem cells. Mind control. Mind-altering drugs. Military technology. When science and morality clash, who’s more powerful? Can the two be combined harmoniously? If we wanted to could we ever stop the juggernaut of scientific progression? After revealing so much knowledge and power, could science ultimately be the death of us?

Continuing from last week…

What if all our goals are simulacra? Does this present any problem? Or even hold any relevance at all?

I think it’s important, especially for the agnostic, to be aware that everything around herself is in flux, isn’t constant, is (perhaps) simulacra. Things are slightly different for the theist, as they have god, a constant non-simulacrum (subjectively at least); she has an eternal, unchanging aim in life; not even just on a whole-life timescale, every action of the theist is directed towards god. Even if the manifestations of god can be interpreted as simulacra, there exists an eternal god figure transcendent of his “actions” who is a copy of nothing else (as the theist perceives him).

The agnostic might be able to obtain a similar eternal cosmic non-simulacrum goal as well. For example “The Good” as described by Plato in the metaphor of the sun, which is briefly outlined as follows.

The sun … not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. … In like manner, then … the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. (509b)

Learn more about it here.

What he is getting at is that there is an eternal constant (The Good) divorced from sense perception that “shines” on objects of knowledge to give them existence, such that everything around us comes from the Good. So the good would not be a simulacrum, although it’s so abstract it’s pretty much in the “god sphere” of belief anyway.

As for the strict atheist naturalist, perhaps they could argue that everything is simulacra of everything, meaning that together all objects make up a unique whole…

Regardless, does it matter? Should we care if our lives have no eternal goal? No solid foundation? I’m comfortable in constant flux, comfortable with a non-eternal lifetime if that’s the way things turn out to be, I’m comfortable not knowing. I think it is entirely subjective. Some people need a firm goal, some people don’t; some people “naturally” have one (the “natural” theist), some people don’t.

A fantastic example of simulacra.

Perhaps the most powerful and obvious example of simulacra in our lives is that of “make-up”, in the widest possible sense of the word. To change your body and appearance to look like someone else who in turn is a copy, and a distorted copy at that, of someone else. It’s difficult to break down the motives for such self-manipulation; does the “right look” represent natural sexual attraction? Is it a indicator of wealth (much like an expensive car, the act of looking the part)? Perhaps it is for self-esteem, although that is undoubtedly woven into the other reasons, we can end up going in circles. An evolutionary reflex? A defense from criticism?

It seems as though everyone is pursuing some ideal or another, cosmetic change or purchasing choices are just two examples of the infinite number of decisions we can make to move ourselves in a certain direction, everyone is changing themselves to be more like someone or something else, towards an amalgamation of goals. Jesus and celebrities are two obvious “goals” that spring to mind, but there must be countless other far more subtle ideals, most, if not all of them simulacra in some sense. Consider the two examples above, Jesus is a simulacra through the bible, a copy of speech from an image of god; celebrities are simulacra in the cosmetic sense mentioned above and also through media representation which is a distorted image of a person who is presenting themselves in a certain way to begin with, as we all are.

What if my ideal is love, or wisdom, or some other abstract virtue? Again surely these are simulacra, perhaps even simulacra with no original form; what is love? what is wisdom? If we only know these things through their manifestations then they are ultimate simulacra.

What if my aim is to be like my father or mother? Then still that image isn’t unadulterated, my idea of father and mother is filtered through everything else I have seen and know about family relationships, my father becomes a simulacra of some cosmic father figure.

A perfect relationship? Copied from others, or constructed out of the errors of others.

The pioneering genius? Creating a pale reflection of the universe.

If everything we can become are simulacra, what does that make us now? Just a reflection of everything that has already come into contact with us?

Fantasy, fiction, fame. Progress. Simulacra.

What are photos? 

It's something I've written briefly about before, but after being away and having lots of photos of my travels to look through it's a thought that has come back to me. I'm talking about photos in the snapshot sense, or perhaps in the  "holiday photos" sense, rather than the pictures you would find in a gallery. I know a lot of people really love photos, love having them about; they stick them up around their room, have photos of their friends as their PC wallpaper and use photos as a sorce of comfort and familiarity.

I can't do this. I find photographs immensely powerful, they either make me feel alienated from a situation in the past, or make me feel isolated in that past time whilst everyone else is in the present, it's like being alone on a separate but identical planet Earth stuck in that single moment. That makes it sound worse than it is, I don't think these feelings are really a bad thing, if nothing else they are powerful and refreshing, when I feel like I want an emotional "hit" so to speak I whip out the photo album (or open the photos folder on the PC) and have a browse through. I don't take many pictures myself but when I do it makes these feelings even stronger. It's not just pictures of people that make me feel this way, often landscapes can be even more powerful, especially if they are of a deserted mountain vista, or most magnificently of all if they are looking out over some expanse of water.

On the other hand a really great photo as a piece of art is one that really draws me in, that can give me the same depth of feeling (though not necessarily the same feelings) as a photo with the added weight of a personal memory attached to it. The wonderful thing about a photograph by somebody else is that can give me that powerful feeling but it's not tied to one particular time, one particular event, I can take it wherever I want, place myself into it in whatever way I wish. I personally find photography one of the most powerful art forms because of this, indeed a good chunk of my time on the Internet is spent browsing for brilliant pictures, brilliant wallpapers to fit my mood and my view on the things around me at any particular time.

What are photos? For me, either powerful relics of the past, or (good photos at least) a form of artistic expression on a par with music.

I'm feeling a real sensitivity to the aesthetic at the moment, a real harmony with my own thoughts and senses. Sometimes I have these periods, often only moments, when my mind really wakes up and comes into focus. It's as if everything around me takes on a subtly different form for an instant, and then settles more or less back to where it was. I start to understand beauty and emotion and passion, as if a glimpse of their ideal nature is being revealed to me, more so than I get from "every day" experience. It's amazing how you can think you appreciate something and then you see it again, as if for the first time, under a different light, and it develops a new sense of depth and complexity. It's all so transient, so fleeting, yet so deeply powerful and shaping.

I've been reading some fiction lately, something I haven't done in a fair while, and it made me realise (again) how valuable fiction and the "non-knowledge-creating" arts are; this is probably part of the cause of this sensitive state of mind. I feel that sometimes I get so obsessed with learning and knowledge that I start to lose hold of the reason knowledge is valuable: as something to be used and applied in "living". I try and keep these things in balance; experience and contemplation, fact and fiction, thought and silence, listening and talking. All of them are useless without the other.

Travelling was quite different to what I had expected.

It was fantastic seeing some new and different cultures, looking at how different groups and nations organised things in different ways and comparing them to what I am used to. One particularly interesting comparison was how different countries treated the environment. For example in Germany they have recycling bins everywhere and lots of wind power plants, whilst in Austria there are a lot of solar panels on house roofs. It was also good to see how much people had in common, despite the barriers of language and history. People tended to speak English, but even when they didn't it was easier than I had expected to communicate.

I went to places of great history, like Rome and Paris, but I never really felt "in touch" with the past there. Perhaps it was the other tourists, perhaps the commercialisation, but standing in the Colosseum or walking round the Forum didn't instill in me much sense of what life would have been like for the ancient Roman in these places. I was expecting to learn lots about the history of the cities I visited, and perhaps I would have done if I had spent longer in each place, taken more time in the museums; but I found that the cities were more useful in placing and visualising history I had already learnt from books, rather than creating new knowledge.

One of the strongest desires I gained from the trip was to become fluent in another language. Currently I know a bit of German, and that's it; I really want to be able to think in another language to see what that feels like. Perhaps only knowing English puts a limit on what I am able to think, or at least what I am able to articulate. I'm pretty poor at learning languages, but hopefully over the next few years I'll be able to learn more and get some idea of how language effects thought.

I never felt as isolated as I expected to feel, on the long train journeys you are in carriages filled with other people, and the cities are (understandably) crammed with tourists. I think for my next journey I'll try and go out of season in order to better get an idea of the real nature of the places I visit. The trip helped me secure a sense of "home"; I don't think I could spend a long time travelling, one of the best things about being away is the feeling that at the end of the journey you will come back home to comfort and security.

I'm going to be away travelling in Europe for the next few weeks, I'll back in mid June. I'm not sure what the Internet access will be like in the places I am staying, so I might not be able to update the blog while I'm away.

I've not been on a trip like this before, so I'm both excited and anxious about what is ahead. It will undoubtedly bring a plethora of new sights and experiences; some good, some bad, but hopefully all beneficial. I'll let you know how I get on.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." ~ Mark Twain

 "When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forest again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,…" ~ D.H. Lawrence

 "Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going. Travel is glamorous only in retrospect." ~ Paul Theroux

A reflection on some aspects of what music means to me. I haven't written poetry in years, and it probably shows; but it feels like a good idea just now. 

Silence,
Sound,
Serenity.

From abstract to emotion,
An idea in motion.

An image, a form,
An ocean, a storm.

A fire, a call,
A moment, a fall.

Lonely people, lonely time,
My memories which are not mine. 

The voice of god whispering in the darkness.

The power of life streaming through the body.

A time of love, a time of loss,
Now reborn; silent reform.

New memories sealed, forever frozen,
The new direction, constantly chosen.

The end,
Silence,
But the rhythm lingers on,
Rejoins the eternal one.

Another thing that hit me during my revision is that some people choose, or are compelled, to spend all or part of their life applying themselves to one specific task. For example, the genius scientist, the obsessive novelist or artist, the eccentric musician, the serial killer, the Olympic gymnast, the tireless politician. What are the merits of such a lifestyle? What are the costs?

A few weeks ago I found some short video interviews with the physicist Richard Feynman on the BBC website. Feynman was a genius physicist, one of the most important of the twentieth century, but during the interview he is talking about how he always avoided the humanities at college, and throughout his life he had never really looked into other more humanity based subjects, preferring to focus purely on physics. He chose to dedicate himself to one specific task, broadening humanity's knowledge of science, at the expense of other knowledge. 

Is there anything wrong with focusing your life in one direction in this way?
Perhaps; although there is a magnificent romanticism about such dedication and obsession, besides no one is ever going to experience everything, we are all infinitely impoverished by what we can never know, so maybe it doesn't hurt to narrow down the scope a bit and really achieve something no human has ever achieved before in one particular field. For myself, the sacrifice is too great. Even if all I manage to think and feel throughout my life is a drop in the ocean I still want to see as much of it as I can, to dedicate myself to one thing now and then, but to always return to the surface to try and pull things back together. Can greatness be achieved either way? Maybe the greatest of humans are those who have the guts to sacrifice everything else to pursue the single ideal.

As mentioned a few posts ago, I've had exams over the past few weeks, hence the short updates; I've been working more or less all day every day for a month and it's had a significant effect on me, changing my outlook and depositing a load of new ideas.

One of the first things that hit me was my lack of empathy, or perhaps more accurately the realisation of just how difficult it is to empathise with people. The all-consuming stress and workload of this time of year is something that always seems to take me by surprise, and now just a few days after my final exam I am already finding it difficult to evaluate how I felt just a week or two ago. When someone mentions to me that they have exams it's not a big deal, I forget the immense effort that revising entails, practically shutting down your life for a few weeks; if I can barely empathise with myself a week on, what chance do I have of understanding what someone else is going through?

This is just a specific example; I have realised that the difficulty of empathising applies to most everything. I can't really understand someones pain unless I am experiencing the same pain myself, I can't re-conjure any of the most intense feelings I have had in my own life, let alone understand what it must be like for someone else feeling them. There's a glimpse there, for sure, I understand what someone means when they say they are happy or sad, or in any other state of mind, but there is such a gulf between knowing and feeling, to understanding on an intellectual or even emotional level and placing yourself into the situation of the other person, to feel what they feel.

Can empathy be cultivated? I think so. I think the more time and effort you place into manufacturing a particular perspective in your own mind, the closer you are going to get to someone you are trying to communicate with who is in that situation. Having past experience is a massive help too, the closest you are going to get to real understanding is if you are going through the same thing at the same time; but even with the greatest possible effort, there's always going to be a gulf between any two people; the gulf of individuality, of personal perspective.

Perhaps not being able to empathise fully isn't such a bad thing, if we could understand what everyone else feels we would never need to venture outside our own mind, never have the satisfaction of really communicating and understanding someone else.