The Tree of Knowledge, and Enlightenment.

 The Tree of Knowledge and Enlightenment.

Well let me just say to warn you and remind myself, that, the Tree of Knowledge and Enlightenment, has been growing upwards and simultaneously, as trees must do, putting down roots for many centuries. I as you also no doubt have had good cause to give thanks to this tree for many things; knowledge and enlightenment, and information. From these you have gained an education, health, wealth, and happiness. If fortune favoured you a partner was added. Then friends; a family to expand your circle, and the ripples went further and further as you built on your knowledge and the enlightenment it brought you from your efforts to do right by your acquaintance with life.

First you are unsure but push forward to test the boundaries that are found every day. Mistakes are made but many smile with indulgence as the old hands know the young need to find for themselves the limits of their powers, and the dangers that may lie in wait to thwart their ambitions. The joy that may come when the young outstrip the older hand with a new twist to their experience often has to be tempered with an unpleasant lesson, previously overlooked or deliberately ignored. In fact as we grow to maturity there are many and varied the lessons to be learned from the Tree of Knowledge.

I have good cause to pass on the warning learnt from my failure to understand the dangers of climbing alone, too high, and too fast, so becoming isolated and then misunderstood, from what I felt were my gains from the Tree of Knowledge. Having assembled as best as I could at the time and awaited the sound of trumpets as the impact of my missives reverberated around the media and establishment. Naturally enough with no status or standing, all I heard was the wonderful sound of silence, and the word wonderful is used advisedly. In a few days, even in my mentally exhausted state, I had learnt a vital lesson.

It was a lesson or situation, I had seen depicted many times in the sci-fi/ horror, genre of fiction. The scientist, doctor, investigative journalist, has invented, or discovered, a new world threatening [ double-edged sword syndrome ]. The only ways to tackle this threat to the status quo is to, place a security notice on the information; reduce the whole idea, and the peddler to the rank of harmless crank, jester or imbecile. In the mean time there being no wish on my part to end in any of these blind alley categories.

So as the months turned into years and having the dubious satisfaction of turning antagonistic some of my family alien to my ideas, or treating me impatiently as a half-wit, the lesson was learnt, harshly and with a very bitter taste the truth of the sayings that: genius is not recognised within your own family, or the prophet within their own country. These claims may seem outrageous but for many years such self-appointed titles were merely a sober realisation and acknowledgement to my inner self that this was my true status. Acknowledged or not, without even the outer trappings of my peers for consultation, it could be that the night watches became a less than friendly.

Slowly I learnt the valuable lesson that all talkative, and emotional types like myself have to learn; the art of talking but saying nothing. So after awhile most folks will stop listening, often this means you end up being a caricature of the blind alley variety but the essence of your belief remains in tact and slowly you have space to build, hone and modify. Some, possibly many, die waiting the opportunity to exploit their big idea. If however the the gods are willing and the time is right then things begin to throw more and more support to build into the edifice you have nurtured over long years.

Despite all my many misgivings as to where I was going with my main chance, every twist and turn in the road now seems to take me and mine closer to confirmation that such a solution is probable, and desirable. Not merely possible at some vague time in the future. Many of the wishy-washy political activists and the political forelock knucklers, have in a phrase been hoist with their own petard recently, and continue to be so. Due to the pace of change, it is often the older generation past retirement age and the young upstarts who are making monkeys out of those who have mortgaged their careers away to lick-spittal around such asinine fashions as political correctness and the latest, blot on the landscape, shaving off great chunks of British backbone; health and safety.

As my wife said to me yesterday: ' How much longer will the silent majority remain silent? '

Well as one of my favourite commentators Andrew Alexander wrote today in his column :  - this spring is proving a psephologist's dream. Everywhere he is begged for his expert analysis.