3. Apricity

Apricity – the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day.
From the Latin apricus meaning “having lots of sunshine”
To apricate is to bask in the sun.

 

 

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2. Phenomenology

Phenomenology – the study of the subjective objectively. Confused?
Rather than a science it is an art: a way of seeing the world. An examination of what are
the ways we think about the world with a degree of philosophical skepticism.

Our whole view of the world is subjective though we like to think of it objectively. In other words what we think of as our own personal laws/values defines how we see ourselves and others.

For example hard work. Some are educated through family values that hard work is good. But is it always? Is this value open to being exploited? The values and attitudes to work are changing with newer more informed younger generations. What to one generation was a law of hard work to be tolerated even bypassing enjoyment or satisfaction. Newer generations don’t want to do this. They want more fulfilment and meaning from their work.

So the subjective has changed. What was seen as hard work is good, has now become more objectively looked at. Which then changes the subjective, to be challenged and renewed.

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1. Economia Lack

Economia – the study of lack. Someone has to be lacking.
You cannot have a working economy without a flow of money. If you have an equilibrium the economy bankrupts. If you have an equilibrium you cannot have an economy. Money has to flow from poor to rich, rich to poor.

Mansa Musa (c1312-c1337) the ninth Mansa of Mali richest man in the world. Travelling through Egypt giving away his gold to every poor person he met. The value of gold dropped overnight nearly bankrupting the Egyptian economy.

An argument that someone has to lack can extend beyong the economy. Heirarchy is another system of lack. Someone is higher or lower in the pecking order: someone has less power and status than someone else higher up.
Human nature or Human design?

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25. Goblin Mode

Goblin Mode – a version of ourselves that is the lawless and unacceptable. Defying social norms or expectations.
Behaviour like vegging out: not looking after appearance or hygiene. Or even behaving like a wild animal.

The ying creates a yang as much of social media encourages us to be organised to maximise our potential. Getting up at 5am, going to the gym, organising finances, stop procrastinating.

Goblin Mode is the id. To Freud the id was the only part of the personality present at birth. It is the driver in childhood existing in the unconscious. When you are hungry you want to eat. This urge can be mitigated by the fantasy of eating a favourite food.

When we mentally breakdown this state doesn’t care about how we look, or what we say, or do. Psychotic episodes turn us inside out. The unconscious is on the outside, unprotected from the cover of the socialised version.
At times we need the release of drugs, alcohol, etc to tolerate reality.

Goblin Mode is Time Out. Rest Period. Down Time.

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24. Audrey Munson

Audrey Munson was a New York model who nobody knows. 
Born in 1891 she was the first super model becoming a model for sculptors. Her image is all over New York in stone and bronze. Even adorning the back of a coin.

At the time ‘Miss Manhattan’ as she was called had a look which fitted the Beaux Arts ideal of womanhood. Between 1910-15 she caught the wave of the New York building boom becoming the model statuette of the city. She appeared in film naked: the first women to play nude in a non-pornographic film. She spent money quickly dating the country’s most wealthy eligible bachelors.

Her landlord killed his wife he was so obsessed with Audrey. This publicity finished her career.

At 40 years old her mother put her in an asylum. Where she remained for the rest of her life dying at 104 years old buried in an unmarked grave.

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23. Meaningless Meaning

Meaningless Meaning is the idea that the modern world creates a false meaning unrelated to the meaning itself. Like to sell a car: adverts describe a lifestyle that can be gained when owning the particular car. Not what the car actually is. But an abstract idea or concept attached to it. This life style cannot be achieved as it is undefinable. So we are persistently dissatisfied, striving for an unreachable lifestyle goal.

Maeaing is applied to everything. Products are judged by the meaning they hold. Meaning has become short term: daily. Every task crammed into finite time has to have meaning. Creating meaning has become just another task. With no end or end to meaning.

The freedom to create meaning needs a social system to support it. If you have no support to enact your freedom then freedom is meaningless. As you cannot enact it! But can you argue that people lead lives of meaningless? The struggle of life appears to occupy most so that life is in some way tolerable. Is shopping and ambition enough?

On the surface it seems a large part of the population is satisfied with life? But are they? Are we clever or aware enough to even think about meaning in our lives? Do we have the time and leisure to think? Or be?

The impact of modern life that is split and fractured creates loneliness and depression. Is this meaning? Meaning could mean being productive or not productive at all depending on your point of view. How do you critique a population that is happy with shopping and ambition. Yet we are unhappy (meaning?) depressed and dissatisfied in modern life. More depression and mental health issues. Where does how we feel fit in? How do we feel about meaning?

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22. Generation Soundtrack

With the passing of Christine McVie keyboard player of the band Fleetwood Mac we see an outpouring of a 1970s generation’s loss. A loss of the soundtrack that accompanied people’s lives of love and heartbreak. Each generation has its soundtrack. In the 1970s it seemed there were fewer sources of music: more people shared fewer soundtracks.

Whether you feel that Peter Green‘s Fleeetwood Mac was the real deal: or the more famous version of Fleetwood Mac had sold out to American FM radio, the album Rumours was heard everywhere.

Strange to say now but it was a first for a band’s music to be created in an atmosphere of love and hate. And cocaine. It was a like a band soap opera on show. A glimpse of a newer age to come where everything is on show.

As a teenager you are moulded by your generation’s characteristics. The soundtrack of your time burns deep into your soul: defining a time with sound that shapes you for the rest of your life. Likewise the music your parents or siblings played. Your heart is open yet to be defined so the music goes deeper. Generation Soundtrack

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21. Heightened

Hearing a friend tell their version of a story from long ago is a powerful feeling. You are sitting around with people you have known for years. You were there. You know. You feel honoured to have been there all those years ago: there is a haunting familiarity of hearing a tale told from another’s perspective of what they/you did and how you all reacted.

Then it goes further. The tale is embellished with more actions following thoughts and feelings. After being involved in the story you realise that the story is not what you remember: their thoughts & feelings become the story. For you that’s not what happened. The thoughts and feelings are lost in the story teller’s perspective. You feel detached from the story that made you feel warm and fuzzy.

The motivation for this changing of the story is to heighten the retelling so it’s becomes more attractive or makes a point. The story is recognisable but it is heightened. As humans we are all into selling. Our story. Our perspective. Our meaning. Ourselves. The 21st Century is obsessed with the heightened. To compete with other heightened stories: our own have to be heightened to stand out above the crowd. Social media has created platforms for these heightened stories: along with the more traditional story telling, books, & movies. Public.
For good and not so good.

One to one peoples’ stories are mundane. Not to them or me: but they are rooted in the ordinary, the everyday. The gentleness, humility and quietness of people’s stories is nourishing. Personal. Private. A depth and solidity is revealed. They are heightened stories but in a different way. No competing versions. No argument. No threat. Only one truth – the truth of the teller without the heightened of selling.

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20. End of a Royal Era

So we are at the end of a Royal Era. The queen was a stoic presence – steady, consistent. A role which many people took familiarity from in a fast changing unsafe world. A throwback to the past of a perception where Britain mattered and stood for something. When the country had power, and we could all be proud to be British.

Things have changed. The world is speeded up with difference becoming the culture in reaction to the past. She was a person to hang onto the olde world to. The loss is that this olde world has long disappeared. But when the symbols finally disappear this creates uncertainty and worry.

Whether we like or notice it: we are symbolic beings. The role of queen stood for much more than the person. A steady presence as a figurehead of a nation in empire decline. Avoiding the painful reality of the decline. We use symbols to make sense of the world. They stick in our minds and imagination as a reliable comfort.

The public face could afford to be stoic: when the private face might not be. If you say little: the symbol becomes even more malleable to suit the individual user. This approach was mirrored by a stoic age. The silent generation knowing nothing else.

Part of this new age is that we appreciate that stoicism will no longer do in personal relationships. We recognise it as cold, and not nurturing. The public and private face have merged: for some to a frightening degree. The world has changed. As ever crisis brings about change: not wishing for change.

So we are at the end of a Royal Era. What next? ……..

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19. Daphne Oram Electronic Music Trailblazer

Daphne Oram was an electronic music pioneer – one of the first British composers to create electronic sound.
She co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop based in Maida Vale creating the original theme tune to Dr Who.

Offered a place at the Royal College of Music which she turned down, to join the BBC as a studio engineer. She worked the analogue way by speeding up, slowing down & splicing tape for effects. Frustrated at the BBC’s lack of interest in pushing electronic music forward: she resigned to become self employed.

She contributed to several Bond films without credit. She developed Oramics: electronic sounds etched into film.
Daphne Oram 1925-2003

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