Over the years I would occasionally write short essays to help me process what was going in my mind. Frequently these were not very coherent – sketches of random thoughts rather than articulate finished pieces. Some captured observations I made while travelling, often noting differences or similarities between one place and another. Others were philosophical. And others were reactions to political events or current affairs.
Ordinary moments often stirred these thoughts: walking from Gate 3 to Gate 24 at a modern airport terminal, sitting on a bus, watching a house sparrow land on a roof, observing a barefoot hawker sell packets of peanuts, weaving my way down an English street filled with parked cars, or reading the news. Sometimes I was enveloped in a something a little more unusual, such as the time an elephant fed just a few meters from my tent, in which case it was less surprising that I was moved to write.
A thought may surface because of something said or seen beforehand. Whatever the trigger, it connects to a myriad of other memories and ideas — consolidating existing beliefs, or provoking new questions. The locations, timing, surrounding events, and my emotions are dynamic, shifting back and forth.
Questions
The questions that keep resurfacing are many and varied: Why are things the way they are? Why has oil been so important in today’s world? What drives global conflicts? Why does extreme wealth exist alongside desperate poverty? Why is religion so important? Why do diseases like bird flu appear out of nowhere (a question I was asking in 2009, well before Covid-19)? Why do we need passports and visas to travel? Why is Africa poor and North America rich? How did humans become Earth’s most dominant land species?
These moments led to deeper reflections. Are these conditions inevitable, or can we influence them? Are we helpless, our fate predestined? Can we ever know the answers? If not, is there a rational way to draw closer to them?
This captures the thought process — a question leads to possible answers, raising more questions. And so the cycle continues.
My motivation for writing
The greatest driving force behind gathering these thoughts into writing is a sense of confusion and despair while manoeuvering within a highly complex modern world.
I read about the rise in mental health issues and sense that many of us don’t know where we are heading, or why. The devastating realities are hard to ignore: billions living in abject poverty with little hope, an environment rapidly deteriorating, resources consumed at an unsustainable rate, and biodiversity in decline.
And yet others are optimistic. We live in an age of unprecedented access to knowledge, with astounding scientific discoveries, improved health services, remarkable efficiency of food production, and the ease of trade and travel.
If we have managed these successes, surely we can address the problems that remain? Is this not so?
Over time, events in our world developed — generally for the worse — and I began to feel a sense of urgency to compile these writings into something more coherent. I felt that events had caught up with me: scenarios I had once pondered as distant possibilities were now happening, or in the process of doing so. Waiting ceased to be an option.
These thoughts are complex, varied, and at times confuse me. Writing them down is partly an attempt to make sense of them. I hope that you benefit from reading about some of them, and that you are are stimulated by Dye-A-Logue.