Tuesday 5 June 2012

The First Hurdle?


The First Hurdle?

All of us and that naturally enough this means everyone from the top of the tree down through the hundreds of grades, divisions and sub-divisions, right down to the very bottom of the heap, have heard or at least understand, once old enough to appreciate the facts of life, that you cannot take it with you. What is referred to in this case is perhaps a little more than appreciated under the old belief system. So let us examine belief.

Under the old belief extracted from the natural cycles of earth, fire, water, and air; then supplemented over the centuries, by rituals supported by the; cleverest, strongest and most persuasive of the population many ideas and fears grew up. So to answer these general questions of the people and to keep them orderly and submissive to the desires, wants and needs of the elite, an invisible barrier of understanding was created.

The invisible barrier of understanding was created after many centuries of trial and error, when it was finally conceded that each civilisation produced  its own success only to the point when they had created a society that gave them the power of gods. At this point the society became unstable and disintegrated due to total lack of basic humanity. With everyone a god nobody was prepared to concede to another.

With the world coming to terms with the aftermath of WW2, in the nineteen forties. It was understandable that even the major industrial and wealth creating countries had drained away a great deal of their resources. A new generation impatient with the old ways that had brought ruin twice in less than fifty years, allowing a change in the balance of power. Sage heads of Europe had a solution which was not endorsed by all.

One of the great and some would say over riding tenants of belief before the two world wars, in the twentieth century was that might was right, and if not, the politic way was to go along with the strongest power. Whether that was in the playground with the biggest bully, or later when the mature adult society kept more or less to the agreed framework of laws passed by the governing elite. There was a flaw though.

The big flaw with both the Greek and Roman societies was that each had to rely on a large slave population from which to draw much of its menial labour. The renewal of this supply of slave labour, had to be supplemented by war. This flaw, built in by the ancient acceptance of military dominance, merely served to endorse the natural order, observed in nature: might, speed, agility, cunning, dexterity, and team work.

Of course the almighty may have given mankind dominion over the animal kingdom, but it now seems patently obvious from many of the advances humanity has made in the past century or so, that was not meant to be the limit of the horizons that should challenge the creation of the almighty. Already the ingenuity, fertile imagination and the development of abstract manipulations allowing many advances in life extension cycle.

Essentially many believed with the end of W.W.2, two basic warring theories had been exhaustively analysed with the loss of many thousand of lives but many remained unconvinced. WW1 was held to be the swan-song of the monarchical system. WW2 being represented as a resulting clash of ideology, from a botched agreement in 1919-1920. WW2 ended in 1945. Peace though was still a far off dream.

The leading lights of the war, as politicians the world over, were keen to put their stamp on any agreements to be made and endorsed for the victorious aftermath of the world war. It soon became common knowledge that the efforts of the United Kingdom to save the day, were yesterday's news. The reluctance, as so often happens, for the defeated leader to retire gracefully from the scene soon began to tarnish matters.

It is an old saw but one that great and small alike, men and women, so often ignore: no one likes to be indebted to others. The debts that you cannot repay are the most difficult to manage with good grace. This was especially the case where the clash of the Treaty of Roman, came into existence, in January 1958, and immediately created a further raft of problems.

The offshore irritant, as one leading European politician put the case of the United Kingdom, had a new theory that might answer the problem facing them all. The main trouble was it required time to be thought through, developed and considered in depth. In any case the main problems were to manage the use and distribution of resources as they stood. Not introduce an esoteric solution that complicated matters.

The article: Going Through the Time Barrier, landed on the desk of the editor of the New Scientist publication. in 1973. Coupled with several other articles, it was easy for the recipients, to the various organs of public enlightenment, to reject and effectively dismiss unsupported arguments from an unknown untried intellect. A quick check had shown the author had been placed in a local psychiatric hospital: end of story.

Of course it was far from being the end of the story. While the author's offerings were being collected, collated and analysed the whole episode was placed under a D notice. A security device to stop any unauthorised leaks to the general public via the media. As matters then evolved over the next several weeks then months, this was the ideal solution to a very delicate problem. It gave everyone time.

Time was of the essence. Time to analyse. Time to assess. Time to reflect, and time to wonder. Naturally those on the periphery of the event initially saw it as some sort of lightening strike from the almighty. Fortunately the power and abilities of this writer, although untrained and unorthodox, in presentation and subject had already alerted the authorities to an intellect of unusual perspective and aspect of understanding.

This was not the first time this individual had come to the attention of the authorities, in 1953, and 1955, while serving in the Royal Navy his disturbing mental upheavals drew attention to himself and were quickly glossed over by the relevant authorities. These affairs were such as to make him look for a quiet unchallenging life on his discharge in late 1955. Slowly though his desire to write asserted itself.

During the early sixties, after a short story correspondence course, his impatience to complete his first novel based on his boy seaman naval training at Shotley reasserted itself and was completed. After its rejection, and only too well aware of its over emphasis on detail and generally not to a standard of which he was satisfied, the whole was placed out of harms way as he reflected on his next move.

That is how matters remained until his reawakening in mid December 1972. What triggered this upheaval and brain storm has not been satisfactorily recorded.The mental tremors lasted at gradually diminishing intervals until the early nineties: occurring in 1979, 1982, and 1992. With retirement in 2001, and time to use the Internet and start a blog. The idea surfaced to try to have another attempt to understand why.




2 comments:

  1. Rather astonished to find absolutely no interest recorded to date for this post.I realise I have a way to go to meet the standard set by a writer like I am reading at the moment [Reginald Hill], but my blog efforts so far have notched up a steady 6 p/r/p/p., so I am rather mystified at this lack of register.

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  2. A sigh of relief, have managed to get some interest registered on my second attempt. The question now is whether to continue on this post or to place a new episode on the blog?

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