Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Reflections on the Fundamentals of Life




These notes stem from Jonathan Raban's 'Coasting' and Julian Temple's forthcoming 'The Future is Unwritten' about Joe Strummer.

'Coasting' first made me reflect on what are the essentials of life as Raban sailed around the coast of Britain in a pretty basic vessel, focusing the mind on those essentials.

There's a theme of campfires in the Strummer film I saw last night - communal fire as the hub of happiness and music.

AIR

WATER
FOOD

SLEEP

Dark
Light

LIGHT
WARMTH

Fire

Shelter
Clothing

Waste
Hygiene

SEX - Reproduction
Company
Community

LOVE - as child
LOVE - as parent

Milk Love
Honey Love (love of life) [Erich Fromm]

Individual
Family
Kind

Learning/Education

Survival
Growth
Control?

Environment

Work
ART
Creativity
Self-expression

Justice



[This is a work in progress ]

5 comments:

Douglas Miller said...

freedom from the need to feel free

death - frankl (in doctor and the soul) - 'those who fear death and those who have guilt about their life'

to create what you can only imagine

and for me:

Solitude
An increasing desire for love
To remain impatient for success

ArkAngel said...

I guess Jonathan Swift for one would agree with you about Death being a fundamental of life. Living forever is no party if I remember Gulliver's Travels correctly.

Douglas Miller said...

A typo - Frankl - 'those who fear death are those who have guilt about their life'.

I increasingly feel that everything I do in life is dictated by my fear of getting to the point of death and thinking that I did not do half as much as I could have done or enjoyed half as much as I should have done.

ArkAngel said...

That's a pretty healthy fear - provided you act on it

Douglas Miller said...

Well I must confess that I this healthy fear is sometimes overtaken by my intrinsic laziness. But I get there in the end. For example I should now be working hard on my presentation in Cologne (new client - United Nations Framwork Convention on Climate Change) next week but I am filling up my itunes and reading blogs instead.