Because of that...

...when John eventually died (they never found a body, but I know he went somewhere and probably just disappeared in a puff of smoke or something!), I was well equipped and inclined to strike out on my own as
an explorer, adventurer and travel writer.

The things I've seen-
oh, the things I've seen!
The things I've been.....


The one thing I remember reading- that I actually understood!- in John's books was that
we (humans) are largely self-limiting, being creatures of habit and scared by the doubt that originally would have represented all that existed outside the prehistoric camp-fire.

Us techno-monkeys, according to John, were bound by;

1. Need for categorization
2. Need for certainty
3. Inability to allow good and bad traits to exist in the same person
4. Acceptance of attitude statements representing a white-black view of life
5. A preference for familiar over unfamiliar
6. Rejection of the unusual or different
7. Resistance to reversal of fluctuating stimuli
8. Early selection and maintenance of one solution in an ambiguous situation
9. Premature closure

To put a slightly more sympathetic tone on that, he once left this message on my answerphone-


'Imagine there are two hominids out on the savanna, and in the distance they see a vague shape they cannot quite make out.
The first hominid thinks it may be a blueberry bush.
The second hominid says, “Wait, it could be a bear.”
The first hominid ignores the warning and runs over to the shape, while the second heads back to the cave. Sure enough, the first guy was right!
It was a blueberry bush and he returned to the cave blissful and purple faced.
The second guy goes to sleep disappointed and hungry.
This scenario plays out several more times, until one day, the first guy doesn’t return to the cave.
That day the vague shape turned out to be a bear.
So the second hominid learns it’s better to miss lunch than to be lunch.

Over time natural selection has passed along the cautious hominid’s genes, who learned that what’s bad is bad, and what is ambiguous is also bad, and anything bad ought to be avoided.
Today we’re not so much worried about bears, but our brains are wired to avoid any kind of pain.
So emotional pain is treated the same way.
And not only emotional pain, but the possibility of emotional pain.
The college student who worries about rejection so he stays in his dorm to avoid not fitting in.
The neglected wife who stays in a loveless marriage because she is afraid of being lonely.

Are things really as certain as we would like them to be?
If you stacked up all the things you were certain about and put them up against all the things you were uncertain about, which pile would be taller?
And if each pile represented the scope of your vitality, which would you prefer to live in?
But it turns out, many of us prefer the limited scope.

Even if the abundant life is rife with possibilities for adventure, passion, and love, many will give that up for some good old certainty.
Living in those predictable walls keeps the threat of danger at bay, but it can end up being a prison of our own making.'


I've lived the wisdom of those words.
I may not have the biggest car, or bank balance, or biceps.
I look and act a little odd, and don't get invited to many parties (!).


I live the life of my choice,
and the life of my dreams.

I've embraced ambiguity with both hands,
learned to trust my doubt and chase my fears.


I've followed life's road and design,
without having a clue where it would go...!