Tag: Israel

Chapter 2:

Impressed as I was after meeting and talking with Joe, taking into consideration the views he expressed about human nature and the root relationship it has with digital technology and AI, I took a keener interest in my pupil’s characters and found in most instances their modus operandi to evaluate and understand applications was determined and governed intuitively, almost you might say without reason. And then it came as no surprise interest in fantasy, science fiction, and a range of psychic interests. Just one or two admitted to belief in the supernatural, or super-normal, as one put it.

Every now and then I would drop into the café where I had met Joe, even tried other cafés in the same area, but not once did I find him. as the weeks went by, I gave up hope of meeting him again. With school half term approaching a day trip to the continent was proposed by my wife and two sons and daughter. Accordingly, I went to the ferry port to book passage. Nearby was a picturesque pub steeped in maritime history, and I took the opportunity to stop for a late lunch. Entering the bar who should I see sitting in an alcove but Joe himself reading a paper.

“It’s Joe, isn’t it?” I said, approaching him. he looked searchingly at me, and then broke into smiles.

“John! Why what brings you here?”

I explained and further spoke about the understanding I had achieved following our previous conversation with my pupils. To which he nodded approval. 

“And I must ask”, I added, “What brings you here?”

He turned round and pointed out of the window. “See that ship out there, the one to the right of that ferry. White upperworks and gantries forward and aft? That’s my current ship.”

I was stunned. Since meeting him, despite the informality of his dress, I had assumed he was a teacher or maybe a university don. But no, he’s a sailor!

“I see”, I said quietly, “What exactly do you do?”

“I’m the Bosun.” Adjudging my expression as one of surprise and bewilderment, he chuckled.

“I gather I’m not the person you thought I was.”

“My apologies”, I stammered. “Actually, I don’t know what a Bosun is.”

“I’m inclined to describe myself as a general factotum, but specifically as Bosun I’m in charge of the deck crew, loading, unloading, and mooring, but it goes further than that. I care for their welfare, listen to their troubles. Health and safety etcetera, etcetera.”

“Wow! I must say you do surprise me. Given our previous conversation I got the impression you were an academically educated person.”

Joe looked at me thoughtfully, pulled out a pipe from his jacket and began filling it with tobacco. “Get yourself something from the bar and meet me outside.”

Suitably armed with a pint and sandwich I joined him outside where we sat at a bench table. I waited while he lit the pipe and began smoking. My mind full of questions.

“Not educated as you imagine, though born to a middle-class family had every opportunity, but the pull of the sea had me on a sail training ship at 14. Oh, how I wish such ships as merchant carriers were still plying their trades! No, my formal education was quite limited. I’ve largely been educated by people and places, and being a curious fella and the world being what it is, able to educate myself from asking questions, books and the internet.”

“Are you married?”

“No. Given I’m something of a wayfarer, it wouldn’t be a fair thing to do, besides I’m at my happiest when at sea.”

“Even when it’s rough and dangerous?”

“It has a timeless quality and constantly reminds how small and insignificant you are. The seascape always keeps the ego in check and engenders humility when you truly respect it.”

“I remember you quoting T.S. Eliot concerning time. Does your experience bear out that meaning.”

“In every way. And more so, as present awareness unencumbered by needs of the past or hopes for the future expands consciousness and encourages tolerant practices. And life at sea does have the advantage of minimising the dysfunctional nature of the world we live in.”

“Does that mean turning a blind eye and ignoring events and actions you don’t wish to know about?”

“That’s a tolerance question, isn’t it? For me tolerance is a positive embracing attitude of mind, not only applicable to day-to-day experience of life, also at the highest possible level our consciousness can express itself. it doesn’t mean tolerating opinion or behaviour you agree or disagree with, whatever view is taken it expresses a moral bias. As related to measurement it defines itself as allowable. True tolerance positively develops open-mindedness, a liberality of expression which seeks to understand causal conditions and is averse to judgement. The geopolitical world we live in is divisively promoted by people of power and is tolerant only in the narrow-minded allowable sense when it suits their purposes. For example, the current conflict in the Middle East where in defence of its peoples and in response to attack from Gaza, Israel is killing and maiming thousands of women and children, not to mention innocent men who have never held a gun in anger, is an insoluble problem in the context of how it is promoted and how efforts are made to end it. If you look carefully at the causes, you can see self-interest is at the root of the conflict, not only the refusal of Israelites and Palestinians to understand the respective fundamental human rights of each other’s communities, but also the bias of other Arabic nations and power blocs in the Western World who for their self-interests back one side against the other. And the more you understand the apparent causes, the more aware you become of the history which stretches back in time, to the time of Abraham. Both Jews and Muslims revere Abraham as a messenger of God. Muslims believe Abraham’s first son Ismail, whose Egyptian mother Hagar was Sarah’s (Abraham’s wife’s) servant, gave birth to the community of those faithful to God. For Jews, Abraham’s is the founding patriarch of the children of Israel through Issac his second son born of Abraham and Sarah when he was old.

Both Islam and Judaism are monotheistic religions who have dogmatised differently the key tenets of their beliefs. Had true tolerance guided their founding fathers the conflict we see between Gaza and Israel would not have taken place. The resulting opposition between Jews and Muslims became even more difficult to reconcile with the rise of Christianity, as both Jews and Muslims regard Christianity as a polytheistic religion on account of its three in one Godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And if you further add the schism of Shiite and Sunni Moslems and the Catholic and Protestant divisions in Christianity, who variously express different views, you can see why I’ve called this an insoluble problem.”

I was silent for a while considering Joe’s words, pondering over the insoluble nature of the problem.

“You would think, wouldn’t you that the causal nature of the Israel Gaza conflict would have been understood years ago?”

Joe looked at me with smiling eyes.

“Of  course, and it has. There is nothing new in what I’ve said. Understanding the causal nature of a problem doesn’t automatically produce an acceptable solution. If give and take are not of equal measure and harmoniously agreed, resolution is not possible. The difficulty I’ve given example of arises from dysfunctionality, which in today’s world is even more of a problem because our societies are ethnically diverse.

Peoples who don’t appreciate the extreme dysfunctionality of their civilised societies behave like someone in an abusive marriage who hasn’t recognised there’s a problem, or of someone who has a violent and chaotic childhood but still thinks their home life is basically normal. Not only does like attract like to cause greater dysfunctional concentration, but it also directly affects their attitude toward others.

We are living in a profoundly sick dystopia that is built on a foundation of unnecessary conflict. Our news media are propaganda services, entertainment is brainwashing, political establishments are self-serving, and mainstream cultures are socially engineered, all built in the name of freedom and liberality, but the reality is entirely different, people’s BodyMind’s are shaped by mass-scale psychological manipulation, which restricts the ability to be positively tolerant.

Sure, there are people who’ve slipped outside the matrix of thought control and have gained the ability to positively harmonise, but their numbers are too small to have any political consequence, and if those numbers were to start getting too big for comfort, we would immediately see influences aimed at sowing division and confusion. It was ever thus as the saying goes. 

The single biggest obstacle to our freedom is the widespread belief that we are individually able to manage our own space. Until the individual realises their BodyMind nature has been educated to conform within the society they inhabit they are unable to break free and realise the uniqueness of their creation.

Real freedom is outside the matrix of thought management. If you are aware of what I speak of, that is the first step toward freedom.”

Joe looked at his watch and rose from the sea, putting his pipe in his pocket. My mind was in a whirl. What is he proposing? Another type of world? And is he saying we’ve all got it wrong -not living as we should be to our own benefit and to others? Where did he learn all this stuff?

Concerned to think he was leaving because of my silence, I looked up and said, “I am interested in what you are saying, can I email you?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Phone number?”

He plunged his hands inside the pockets of his coat and then pulled them out to display open palms “Don’t have one”,  He said with a laugh.

“That can’t be”, I said, “Everyone at least has a phone. Did you leave it aboard ship?”

“No. I don’t have a personal phone or an email, but for work I do -have to.”

“I’d like to talk with you again. How and when is that possible?”

“I’m here most afternoons around this time.” And with that he shook my hand, clapped me on the back. “You have an interesting mind.”

“Oh, how?”

“You ask the right questions.”

And whilst I was considering what he meant by that he sauntered off.

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