Empty Monkey (Dot Com) - The real-time story of how the book is written

Post Creation myth.
After the ‘big bang’, millions of years ago, what some people call ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ began to get together, to coalesce. This came about because people’s brains had grown bigger than the other animals, and all the memories they had contained were attracted to each other, rather like moisture likes to form clouds. Because the memories were only information, this happened in another dimension, one that theoretical physicists explore. So we could call it the ‘information dimension, or ‘Id’ for short.

Several millennium later, (what we would call an eternity), all these ‘information memories’ became extremely bored. As you can imagine - they couldn’t actually do anything - it was like being trapped in a cinema forever, and they couldn’t even eat popcorn! (more…)

Buddhist saying– If someone tells you a lie, you are also responsible

Society functions on the basis of trust. Soldiers fight because they trust their commanding officers, and sometimes the cause they’re fighting for.

Commercial empires are built on brand loyalty, customers remain loyal until either they are wooed away by a rival, or they lose their trust in the brand.

During an interview situation, the interviewer obtains information because there is a two-way situation of trust. The interviewer has to believe the interviewee (or at least make the interviewee believe that the interviewer believes him or her).

Unfortunately compulsive liars and some forms of schizophrenics are very skilled at making an interviewer believe a pack of lies.

The question is this, what is the best technique for finding out the truth?

Late one evening, my son, noticing that I was a little under the weather, offered me a cup of hot chocolate. It was not what it appeared to be.

The drink in question was quite disgusting, due to the similarity between chocolate powder and gravy powder. An easy mistake when the ingredients are kept in unmarked jars.

This made me think about the nature of expectation, and how appearances can be deceptive. (more…)

When you are with someone, your attention is focused on them and everyone else you know takes a back seat in your mind. The same thing happens with places. It is almost as if everywhere else doesn’t really exist until you get there. This is what it is like for an animal, and it is only our intellect that tells us that other places and people continue in our absence. The problem arises when we do things and make decisions with people in one place that are incompatible with other people in another place.

Once brought into being, they can be used or discarded; they never disappear, although they may be hidden.
There are appropriate thoughts and inappropriate ones.
Much humour is derived from inappropriate ones, but to act on them is often a mistake.
The truth is we all have inappropriate thoughts and desires; this is where thinking about thoughts is important.
Deciding what to think about is a luxury denied to many. Children are given things to do and to exercise their brains on. An excess of information, entertainment and activities robs us of the time required to develop this facility.
This is where I believe the problem arises.
Without the mental rigour acquired from practice, thinking about thoughts is replaced by acting or speaking them.
Just as listening to others is a prerequisite of conversation, so listening to our thoughts is a prerequisite of logical reasoning.

The bush-taxi lurches off the tarmac onto a dirt track, bucking and swaying like a small boat fighting against a rough sea, the old Mercedes diesel engine labouring as we plough through sand filled gullies, then cruising along hard-baked rippled clay that threatens to shake every nut and bolt of the old bus loose. An intense blue sky blends into the flat yellow horizon, from which a settlement, mud-brick dwellings camouflaged in the parched semi-desert appears. We thread our way through the village. Our driver squeezes together two bared wires protruding from the almost disassembled dashboard. This I realise sounds the horn that clears goats, chickens, dogs and children from the track. I lose count of the villages we pass in this way, each one named after its founder, but as anonymous to us as the mountains of the moon. I have a privileged position, one of three passengers up-front next to the driver. The other twenty-three passengers are squeezed into a space designed for fifteen. Taking a sip from a bottle of mineral water I then mop my brow with an already sopping handkerchief and think of rainy English winters, especially the one we had just escaped from, where my companion had talked me into helping her look into the possibility of starting a charity. Seemed a good idea at the time – find a village, buy a plot, get a couple of buildings erected, open a home for orphans, rent out rooms to visitors to pay it’s way. Sounds simple when you say it quickly, but knowing Carole, she will find a way. (more…)

Well – well, quite an interesting day.

We had Xmas lunch at Nick’s.
We arrived an hour early and were met by Roy, an old friend of Mandy’s, I had said to Mandy ages ago that he was so mean-spirited, obnoxious and rude, that I would never visit again if he was there, but to hell with it, season of good-will and all that, so I asked Carol to be nice to him, talk to his dog and let me help Nick in the kitchen.

He was not rude to us. (more…)