Introduction to the blog
Here I share my ideas. I have tried to express them clearly and I look forward to any comments in return. Agreement would be wonderful, giving me confidence, but disagreement is just as welcome, since it stimulates reflection and could be a path to new ideas. For ideas to evolve we need to communicate –
Dye means to change the colour of something, from the Old English dēagian[1] (verb), and this represents to me a change or a different perspective. Logue – means a discourse of a specified type (a dialogue). It traces its origin from the French –logue, coming from the Ancient Greek – logos[2]. Logos was first used
Over the years I would write short essays which helped me process what was going through my mind. Frequently these were not very coherent, akin to sketches of random thoughts. Some captured observations I made while travelling, often noting differences or similarities between one place and another. Others were philosophical. Some 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 enjoying the proximity of an elephant feeding a couple of metres from my tent, in which case it was a little 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.
The questions that keep resurfacing are many and varied: Why are things the way they are? Why is oil 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 the blue (a question I was already asking in 2009, 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 lead to deeper reflections: Are these conditions inevitable, and can we influence them? Are we helpless, or is 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.
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.
If you’ve just arrived here, this page is meant to help you find your way around — and to explain how the material is structured, in case you’d like to read with more intention than just scrolling through the latest post. The blog is organised into a hierarchical order starting with Series, then Chapter and finally Post.
All submissions to Dye A Logue, except the Asides, are organised into five Series – the highest structural unit. The Series (= Categories) are as follows –
• 1. Problems — what appears to be the greatest challenges we face
• 2. Who Are We? – A look into human nature
• 3. How the World Works – What are the rules we impose and the overall real of our surroundings?
• 4. Problems revised – a revision of problems we face after considering factors explored in other themes.
• 5. Where Are We Headed? – What is the outlook for the future and how sure can we be?
• 6. Solutions – Is our future inevitable and if not what can we do to solve problems?
• Asides – Posts that do not fall into any of the themes directly but have been included because in some way these asides or tangents are relevant. They include posts on beliefs, and others on definitions which form the glossary, for example.
You’ll find these listed across the top of the site. Each one leads to a page that lists its posts in the order they’re meant to be read — not necessarily the order they were published, but the order that will make the most sense if you’re following the argument from the start.
Within each series, the material is divided into chapters. Some chapters are short enough to be contained in a single post. Others cover more ground than a single post comfortably holds, so I’ve split them into several posts — each one focused on a specific point, with its own title, and each linked to the one before and after it, so you can move through the chapter in sequence if you’d like.
You don’t need to read every post in a chapter to get something out of it; each one is written to stand on its own. But if you’re working through a part from the beginning, the posts are ordered to build on each other, often following a train of thought.
The latest post will always appear on the home page and the most recent post appears at the top. However this may only be useful to you if you have already read all the other posts.
Otherwise there are several ways to find a post – you can read in the order intended by following through the list of chapters and posts under each Series in the menu at the top of the page. Alternatively you may use the right hand Category (= Series) search (to see an image of this area click here and a new page will open), or search in the Archive or by Tags.
From time to time, I step outside the main sequence to write a post on something adjacent to it: perhaps a comment on how something that is happening currently is linked to the material, or a tangent that doesn’t fit neatly into the main thread but seems relevant anyway. These are kept separate from the core chapters so the main argument stays easy to follow, but they often link back to the post they relate to, in case you want the more complete context. They can be found using the same methods as outlined under Chapters and Posts (above), or from the menu at the top of the page in the Asides list.
Some of the language I use carries a specific meaning in this project, so I’ve written longer explanations of key terms and concepts as their own posts. You can find the full list on the Glossary page, with a short description of each term and a link to the complete entry. If you come across an unfamiliar term while reading, it’s worth checking there. You can also check the tag definitions.
You’re welcome to read however suits you — You may read it in the order intended, like a book, starting with the first series and ending with the last. In this case start with Series 1 – an examination of the current world´s problems (seen through a human lens).
Alternatively you could explore whichever series interests you most, follow a single chapter through to its end, or wander through the asides and glossary on their own. The structure exists to make that kind of nonlinear reading possible, not to insist on a single correct path through the material.
