Small Revolutions: Voluntary Simplicity in Devon

From Rumi

I died from minerality and became vegetable;

And From vegetativeness I died and became animal.

I died from animality and became man.

Then why fear disappearance through death?

Next time I shall die

Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;

After that, soaring higher than angels -

What you cannot imagine,

I shall be that.

- Rumi, 13th century love poet

Problems & Solutions

The problem is that we're all connected.
Everything we do, affects everything else.
No action is independent, isolated, contained.

The solution is that we're all connected.
Everything we do, affects everything else.
No action is independent, isolated, contained.

One law of physics is that nothing ever disappears from the universe. Energy, matter, nothing is ever lost, it only changes shape. And everything is connected.

Every action affects everything else. No good is ever lost from the world, it just changes shape.

The recycling, the reduction in carbon footprints, the trying to find new ways to live that mean we can all live in a healthy world - yes, it does sometimes look like it disappears without a trace.

But the truth is it never disappears. It just transforms. It changes shape.

In the I Ching there is an image for one of the hexagrams and I forget which one it is. But it's the picture of a flow of water into a hole. The stream seems to have stopped. But it hasn't. It's filling the hole and at some point it will spill over and contnue its journey.

So many people in the green movement are getting dis-illusioned at one point or another and no wonder.

But the truth and nature of things is that 99% of the time we will never see the positive effect of what we do. But just because we can't see results, doesn't mean the change isn't happening.

Sometimes it's important to visualise the change that you can't see.

The child in Africa not emaciated and ravaged by famine and drought, the freak storm that didn't kill people, the landfill that never got built, the fish that never got sick and poisoned.

Nothing good is ever lost from the world. So just because you can't see it, don't kid yourself that it doesn't exist.

It's the small actions that changes the world, though the way they work may well be invisible to us.

Drops of water wear away stone, though no single drop appears to make the difference, they all did it.

When you do something good, you enter eternity.

The Cosmic Boomerang.

I've now taken the step of shutting down my business, and god do I feel happy about it. Thanks to everybody online and offline for their support

I got some great comment from Mike, and I'd like to paste his comments here:

"I spent most of last year doing the same thing, only to discover that I'm at my best/happiest/wholest in the garden, occasionally writing (words and software).  So, now wrapping up the loose ends of what remains of my business "interests", and just going with the flow for a while.  It's bliss."

I also had dinner with a friend last night who also told me about someone a lot more successful than myself. This person writes bestselling novels and has just given up, to the consternation of their publishers, a project that doesn't feel right, that just doesn't inspire them.

I feel I have learnt something of a lesson about letting go. About having the courage to give something up that doesn't feel right, to follow your heart regardless of its own peculiar, often frustrating logic.

The files are being archived as we speak, and I have left in its place, a picture of a buddha. There is something wonderful and refreshing and freeing about letting it all go.

I worry sometimes that it may be yet another instance of me flitting from one thing to another. But something tells me that although there is a risk of that with my personality, there is also a greater force carving out a certain, almost inevitable path.

The path is massage.

I started training with Clare Maxwell Hudson a couple of years ago. I had just come out of a turbulent period of my life with a need to escape my life in London and get some time out. The escape I found was going round Europe in a campervan. That turned out to be a bizarre and not altogether wonderful experience, and after a minibus crash in Sorrento in Italy. But I still needed somewhere to chill out so I went to Thailand for two months, and wrote constantly in my journal. When the Tsunami hit on Boxing Day, and my family was frantically trying to get in contact with me not knowing if I was alive or dead, I was on the other side of the country sheltered from the devastation and unaware of it.

I came back home and started the massage course again. This was all down to Clare's kindness as she did not  make me pay to do the course again. Later that year redundancy threatened, and a new job loomed and I gave up once again, stupidly.

I can tell how this is looking. Bad.

But I find myself here and now, knowing that I have to complete my training as a massage therapist. There seems to be something inevitable about it, rather like a vast karmic/cosmic boomerang. Whatever I try to do, however I try to escape (university, corporate careers, far flung escapes and bizarre travel adventures) I am brought back to the same thing again.

I don't believe in destiny. It's an absolute construct. There's no such thing. It's generally something we map onto history with hindsight in order to confer it with some sort of narrative inevitability that serves our own purposes. And that's a whole load of rubbish.

But I do believe in following your own heart. In fact, the older I get, I believe that is the only way. Knowing yourself and following your heart. Because life is short and at the end we die. I believe my various bits and pieces will simply become part of the universe again. That's it.

Massage and aromatherapy is something that I have harboured in my heart since I was 17.

And I believe it's time to stop playing around and start following my heart well and truly. Because that's the only way there is.

Doesn't matter that it doesn't create fortunes. It does matter that what I do in life has to feel right to me, and only me.

Clare Maxwell Hudson has closed her school I was shocked to find a couple of weeks ago. And it sparked something in me.

So, Clare, if you ever happen to come across this, I'm back. And this time the cosmic boomerang is coming home to stay, because I can no longer run away from what I need to do.

Things I don't know about success...

In this classic novel by Terry Pratchett, there's a wonderful episode with a druid-as-computer-geek. I won't spoil it for you if you wish to read it, because it's rippingly good. But I wanted to share a little quote with you from that part of the story:

“The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.”

For my own usage, I'd probably rejig it as "faith, hope, persuasion and sheer bloody mindedness".

It seems to me that starting your own business is pretty much like that.

You've got a whole load of naysayers (especially and most often the ones inside your own head saying "who are you to be trying this, are you sure you know what you're doing?") trying to get you to focus on everything that could go wrong (with the best of intentions), the bits you haven't thought about yet, and the possible of Horrible Eventualities, Failure, and which, if you have a particularly vivid imagination like me, you can connect up imaginatively and plausibly to the biggest negative eventuality - death.

It's all fear. Now, fear is very healthy. I like fear, like Rincewind in Pratchett's discworld, it's kept me alive for a long time.

But fear is a set of messages to keep you alive and not to cripple you from doing anything new. Because the new, if it is outside the comfort zone, is always scary.

I don't advocate blind optimism either. That's just as daft and dangerous.

So what's the solution? Well, back to the quote.

I think we need to have faith and hope that we're not complete plonkers (despite what everybody with the best of intentions might tell you obliquely or otherwise) and we do (kind of) know what we're doing. If not, we trust that we'll figure it out and learn (very) quickly.

I think we need to acknowledge uncertainty as a force, both accepting it always as an ingredient that makes the mix exciting at the same time as trying to reduce its influence as much as possible.

Persuasion and charm - as much charming yourself that you can do it as persuading other people to believe in your thing. Entire economies and stock markets are built on how people feel - whether they are pessimistic or optimistic. If you don't believe in it working yourself, then it's difficult or impossible to persuade and charm effectively.

But lastly and most importantly, sheer bloody mindedness. I think it is a massively underrated virtue that we should practise more. If you take the point of view that  everything has a tendency to failure and often displays those characteristics in initial stages, sheer bloody mindedness is reducing the uncertainties, solving problems rather than meekly accepting them.

And that about sums up some of the things that I don't know about success, but I'm hoping to find out as I go on this journey.

Have a great day,

Rob

Why I am becoming self-employed

I tried to register as self-employed with HMRC (inland revenue) today. They wouldn't let me because I haven't yet made any money!

A pity because I have been shying away from a big bold step - namely working for myself on my own terms. So this is a public statement to tip me over the edge and push me into action.

So, here's why:

1. I want time for an allotment
2. I want our dog (to be adopted in 2007) to hang out with me at work
3. I want a quality of life and my own flexible hours
4. I can take responsibility for my own decisions - good or bad
5. I can work on my own terms
6. I can choose to earn less or more - and adjust my effort accordingly
7. I'm no longer willing to let someone else get the profit out of me and what I can do
8. I'm no longer willing to have daft decisions thrust upon me
9. No-one can fire me or make me redundant (woohoo!)
10. I don't want to be forced up a corporate ladder - I want my own version of success, not anybody else's version.
11. I believe I can make more money for less effort by being self-employed - after the initial gearing up
12. I give myself permission for holidays when I need and want them
13. I make up the dress code
14. When I'm self-employed, I'll never be late to work again.
15. No more internal bureauracy
16. No asking for permission.

Thank you for listening.

Rob