Tuesday, December 30, 2008

End of a momentous year

Here we are at the end of 2008. All round it has been a momentous year and looks as if it will end on a ‘high’ note with the Israelis threatening the Palestinians with all out war in Gaza and killing over 400 assorted Hamas militants and civilians by way of a warning.
Just thought I would wish everyone a Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous 2009.
Cheers.
Enjoy tonight.

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Gaza strip

What a mess and what a tragedy. The events transpiring in the Gaza Strip at this moment are the result of injustices going back to 1947 when the victorious Allies (mainly Britain) ‘gave’ a large portion of Palestine to the unfortunate survivors of the Nazi Death Camps, to form the state of Israel. The current problems stem from that time. I do not believe the Palestinians were asked if they had any objections. Everyone hoped that any problems would just go away.

Well, four wars later and incessant skirmishes and the various ‘Intifadas’ have made this the most dangerous zone on earth. With over one million displaced Palestinians crammed into Gaza, seething about the injustice (it is immaterial whether it is perceived or actual – the end result is the same), and wanting to return to ‘their’ land, something is going to happen. What astonishes me, and I know that I do not live there, is the attitude of the Israelis. They have suffered injustice in varying degrees for centuries; they suffered appalling atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s. Those with some knowledge of history will recall the Warsaw Ghetto, when a number of Jews were forced into a small area of Warsaw – they had some arms and they expected help from the British and others (which did not really eventuate, even though the Royal Air Force did air drop a few crates of weapons) – and they fought the Germans but were annihilated. The difference between Warsaw and Gaza is only a matter of degree, but it appears that the Israelis cannot see it (or will not see it).
And the wall they have built between the East and the West bank, isn’t this a ‘Berlin’ wall, isn’t this a version of apartheid? Which is discrimination, which in turn results in injustice, which in turn causes more anger, which results in more acts of revenge (against the injustices) and the sorry cycle is repeated, again and again, to no one’s advantage.

Killing people; destroying their means of livelihood; trying to starve them into submission will never work. Have such practices, perpetrated against them, ever stopped the Jews? Of course not – they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. Did such activity stop the British after London and Coventry were bombed? Of course not they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. Did such activities stop the Germans or the Japanese after their cities were destroyed by fire and atomic bombs? Their military capabilities may have been curtailed but they are now the power houses of the world economy – they are a proud and intelligent people with a long history.

The Palestinians will not give in to Israel – until the injustices of the past are at least acknowledges and some restitution made they will continue to seethe and plot revenge. Why should they not – they are of the same ‘stock’ as the Israelis? They are a proud and intelligent people with a long history. What one thinks the other will think and all each wants is their own patch of land.
For God’s sake just negotiate! As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “there should be more jaw, jaw and less war, war”. Please that the Palestinians and Israelis will do just that – talk and not fight!

What bothers me most, and I am sure it is exercising the minds of strategic thinkers every where, is what happens if the Israelis do engage in a ground campaign in Gaza? The Israelis normally go in boots and all this will cause a great deal of soul searching within the Arab world. If they unite against Israel – and remember that they have oil and other financial ‘weapons’ they could use against anyone they feel has wronged them, then Israel will be in real trouble. The West cannot afford another war – it has neither the will nor the man power to prosecute another war. If a war it is then the Israelis will be alone.

It is all so unnecessary – one would hope that after five million years of Human evolution we would have learned to settle our differences without resorting to killing each other!!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Examining your life

First up, a happy festive season and prosperous New Year in 2009, to all.

It was Socrates who claimed that “....the unexamined life is not worth living” (Dialogues of Plato – Apology). While I am still not very good at this – examining my life I mean, being somewhat nervous about what I might discover, there are some real advantages in doing so.

Writing about what I want to say comes easier to me than talking about it. One of the spin-offs from writing these blogs is that I am really learning a great deal about myself. Things that I like, what I don’t like, what I am quite good at, what I should not write about – a whole range of things. And that is good. Life is always a process, a journey from birth to death. I say a journey but really there is no need to travel at all – it is an “inner” journey, a journey of self discovery. There is no need for me to move one centimetre from where I am now to start, progress and finish my ‘journey’.

We are all a great deal more than the water tight skin bag, filled with flesh blood and bones, that we call our body. It is made of all the common elements of the universe but, as I say, there is more to each of us than that. This skin bag contains what we are made of, but who we are, our emotions, our thoughts, our hopes and aspirations, is another matter. One moment our body is alive, the next it may be dead. The life “essence” that enlivened it has now abandoned the body and what is left is a pile of inanimate elements that will dissipate back into nature. The heat of the body, the water, and the earth elements all return back to be, in due course, recycled.

So, apart from our body, what about the rest of what makes us human? What do we do? What are our thoughts and in our private moments what are our true hopes and aspirations? What is the guiding principle behind our emotions? Some of these are unknowable, in that each person has to experience whatever is needed for themselves and this cannot be replicated in any formal sense.

What started me of on this ‘inner quest’, if that is what it can be called, was many years ago at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa. I had been working for four years before I enrolled, so I was, I suppose a mature student. Anyway, the first year exams came around and I was very nervous. To calm my nerves I did what I still do now – I sat at my desk turned off the lights in my room, closed my eyes, quietened my mind and was still. All of a sudden the hairs at the back of my neck rose up, my breath and pulse quickened and a scene appeared ‘behind my eyes’. The scene was of a beautiful orange and red sunset over a lake, or a body of water – very peaceful. It then suddenly changed to a beautiful cold early dawn scene at some marsh – I could see the reeds and other water plants growing in clumps in the water. The sky was a clear eggshell blue and across my vision there appeared a flight of geese, flying in a V formation, from left to right. Everything was at peace. The beauty of the scenes is really indescribable.

Immediately my breathing and pulse returned to normal and I ‘awoke’ with an unshakeable belief, a knowledge, that ‘all will be well’. The scenes and emotions from that evening, so long ago, are with me still. I just have to close my eyes and I am back there in my little cubicle of a room reliving those same emotions. All was well. I passed all my exams and got my degree. And all is still ‘well’ in my life – what I felt then I still feel now.

How I ‘received’ that knowledge, that belief, and where it came from I don’t know. I have my ideas about this of course, but I cannot prove a thing. But it gives me comfort and brings peace of mind and this will remain with me till the end of my days.

Many others have ‘witnessed’ similar scenes or even had near death experiences. I know that my late mother did with the very difficult birth of my brother. My wife also had a near death experience when she suffered her first kidney failure. It cannot be that uncommon as even in my small circle I know of three instances, myself, my wife and my mother.

All this gives another dimension to ‘Life’ and I think, enriches it. As I say it has certainly brought me comfort and peace of mind. That is why I am still searching, to see what more there is to learn, if that is the correct word. I sometimes think that this knowledge is innate, within us all and all we have to do is to ‘discover’ it. That is why I love Philosophy and why I like writing. It gives me the opportunity to share what I have learned and what I believe is of vital importance, with others.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Mea Culpa

It is now Christmas Eve. That most treasured of times; the one time in the year when differences are, if not forgotten or forgiven, at least considered in a more favourable mood. This is the season for spreading good cheer; for meeting family and friends and enjoying the break from work; for going on holiday and making (and breaking) resolutions.

Here is mine: unless I think more carefully about what I choose to write about I should keep quiet! I made a statement at the end of my last blog – about homeless people and that their plight is often one of choice. Now I know, I have always known, that many are homeless not from choice but by circumstances beyond their control. I consider myself to be an interested observer of life and I read widely so I am fully aware of the many and various events that occur to render a person or a family, homeless.

Therefore if I offended anyone, or gave the wrong impression, I unreservedly apologise.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Mindless actions

Two unrelated but equally unfortunate incidents have occurred to people close to my wife and I. Two nights ago my daughter’s car was broken into. The thieves obviously thought there was an ipod in the car. There was a cable used to attach the ipod to the car’s speaker system dangling from the radio. That was all – just a USB cable – maybe $5 worth. But no, they smashed a window and took the cable. I just don’t know what to think. The repairs, using a window from a wrecker’s yard will cost $70 plus my son-in-law’s time.

The second incident, the following morning, was rather more serious. A woman, from East Timor, who my wife has been helping, had her handbag snatched from her shoulder, in a shopping centre, by three youths. Because of her traumatic experiences in East Timor this woman suffers from panic attacks (which for those who suffer them are the worst experiences imaginable). The woman had some hundreds of dollars in her bag (part of the Federal Government’s handout to stimulate the economy) to buy Christmas presents and food.

Justice was served in a fashion, in that the youths, when running away from this woman did not have enough time to properly search her bag, took $200 which was right on top, and then ran straight into the arms of a security guard who was having a smoke outside. Two were caught but the third got such a fright that he threw the bag away with such force that it smashed the window of a car setting off the alarm. That third youth got away with the $200. They are either close friends or brothers so he will eventually be caught – though the woman will never get the money back.
This woman is a very gentle, timorous little thing; speaks only Portuguese (which is how she met my wife who translates for her and generally helps out) and is married with three children. Unfortunately the youngest, a little boy of just three years old witnessed the entire affair. He obviously was shocked and started crying, which did not help his mother’s panic attack, and is himself now traumatised and will not leave his mother’s side.

The youths involved are from a disadvantaged minority. Their parents would most certainly also have received the Federal Government’s handout. But no, greed and possibly a desire for drugs or other substance abuse would have prompted their actions. If they were not already known to the police, they certainly will be now, which stuffs up their future. The spin off from such events just keep rolling on – you can never see the end – I suppose there is no ‘end’. The whole of society will be affected in some way.

And now something else has happened since I started writing this piece - a third thing - my home delivered newspaper has been pinched!! I only get one delivery a week – the Weekend Australian. My wife and I like to read it with our breakfast on Saturday mornings. I phoned the delivery man and he assured me that he delivered it quite early on this morning. Well it has gone, which is irritating but not serious.
All these events are so unnecessary. They do not bring peace and goodwill to anyone. In Australia there is no need for anyone to starve or be without shelter, unless it is by choice because the alternative is too unpleasant to contemplate – continuing violence and abuse, for instance. But there are still (relatively) generous social security payments available to help those who find themselves in difficulty – so there is no NEED to steal.

I can understand how the victims feel (my newspaper is nothing) but the perpetrators have diminished themselves as human beings; they will not have peace of mind – which is what we are all ultimately striving for. They think they have gained something but really they have lost more. This is sad and as I said before, all of us, all Society is diminished by such actions.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

It must be the silly season!

It has to be the silly season – otherwise how can the extraordinary antics of so many ‘reputable’ people and companies be explained and how can they go so awry?

What on earth is going on in the financial world? How can anyone embezzle, defraud, steal – whatever, $75 billion dollars? $75 billion!! I am absolutely staggered. The mind boggles at the audacity, the effrontery of the person – Bernard Madoff. And more importantly why did the authorities not detect this man’s activities earlier. They first had warnings in 1999!

“ The chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox, has issued a statement saying the commission has learned that "credible and specific allegations" regarding Mr Madoff's financial wrongdoing were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff at least as early as 1999.
But no action was ever recommended to the SEC.
Mr Cox says he is gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures to thoroughly look into the claims.”

Then there is the ongoing saga of James Hardie. How can the former chairwoman of James Hardie, Meredith Hellicar, claim that she never knew that the company could not meet all future payments to asbestos victims. I mean, what sort of leader is that? It was her job to know! That is what she was employed to do. To actually run the company – know what was going on in the company and make the appropriate decisions! She has appeared at a New South Wales Supreme Court hearing on charges that she and other company directors broke corporations law.

Meredith Hellicar is obviously in a state of denial about the lack of funding, to protect her backside. Despite the release (about the lack of funding) being the subject of media reports and James Hardie discussion papers, she denied any knowledge of the release until it appeared in a special commission report late in 2004.

Now, today, we have news of the Commonwealth Bank's handling of a $2 billion capital raising which has been labelled a debacle. The CBA has blamed the brokers Merrill Lynch for failing to correctly communicate the information. Australia’s second biggest bank and biggest mortgage lender no less. Oh dear, dear me!!

Last but certainly least is this beauty, from the press – “At a banquet in the Danish capital of Copenhagen late last month, accounting firm Ernst & Young feted a Danish software company for runaway growth under Stein Bagger, its dynamic chief executive.

About a thousand guests, including Denmark's tax minister and leading business people, were there to applaud.But Mr Bagger, the night's big winner, wasn't there to pick up the Entrepreneur of the Year accolade and two other awards. He was busy fleeing from what investigators now describe as Denmark's biggest business scam in decades.

Shortly before the banquet began, Mr Bagger, 41, vanished from a hotel in Dubai. He flew to New York, drove across the US and surrendered to police in Los Angeles. In the meantime, his award-winning company, IT Factory, declared bankruptcy.
A liquidator has taken over IT Factory and is sifting through its affairs.
Sent back to Denmark yesterday, Mr Bagger cried and pleaded guilty before a Danish court to charges of aggravated fraud and forgery, crimes that could land him in jail for eight years.

The gist of the allegations is that Mr Bagger used a web of phantom firms to get money from banks and then used these same companies to place big purchase orders for IT Factory software and services. He was buying from himself using other people's money.”

What do these people think they were doing? The web of deceit, of greed, gross ineptitude and of corruption in high places is almost beyond belief. Ethics, morals, virtue, values – treating others the way they would like to be treated – and just plain ordinary common sense is totally, totally absent. As is any concept of the law of cause and effect.

Then there are the accountants and auditors that would (should?) have prepared the financial records and had them checked! What were they doing? And the regulatory authorities, what were they doing?

These are just the one's the authorities know about - how many others scandals and frauds are out there, still to be discovered?

I think I will keep what money I have in a box under my bed!!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

AFL good sense

At last there has been some sense knocked into the collective heads of the Australian Football League hierarchy. A highly talented footballer, with fragile emotional strength has at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour been accepted back by the AFL community, back into the game he loves and was very obviously born to play. I am of course talking about Ben Cousins. All the more power to the Richmond Football Club for choosing him as their new player for 2009 – with all his many talents and many faults.
Ben is a magnificent athlete but he needs a very good mentor to guide him in everyday life skills. He does not pick his friends very well, obviously has a very low tolerance for alcohol and drugs. And I suspect has a low self esteem, hence the ‘need’ for substance abuse and the company of the people he associates with. Very sad.
At least Ben now has a second chance and I for one wish him well in his new club. I hope to see this superb athlete grace the football fields for quite a few years yet (who knows I might even change my allegiance to Richmond and follow a code that I do not really understand – I prefer rugby union!).
Good luck Ben.

Illinois Governor update

The latest on the Illinois Governor case is that the Illinois House of Representatives has voted to begin an impeachment inquiry into Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is accused of trying to sell the US Senate seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama.
The inquiry, approved 113-0, will be placed in the hands of a special committee.
If it determines that impeachment is warranted, the House would vote on whether to impeach, to be followed by a trial in the state senate.
If convicted at trial the governor could be forced from office.
It seems that no one wants to be seen to ‘like’ this bloke any more!!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Consequences

I know that I tend to be a bit repetitive about the importance of ethics and rabbiting on about why ignoring the effects of unethical behaviour and actions will have unforseen and generally negative effects on a person’s life but as I keep on repeating, what is the viable alternative?

Now with all my ‘knowledge’ of ethics and my supposed expertise in the subject please don’t think that I have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude and that I am better then you. I do not have that attitude and I am fully aware of my failings as a human being (after all I have a wife of nearly thirty years and she brings me back down to earth regularly!). I have fantasies that if acted out would land me in gaol; I have done things that I am not proud of, that people do not know about and I would rather they stayed that way. But that is life. We learn from the lessons our experiences – good and bad - teach us. As I say that is life, and I love life; I love beauty in all its forms – nature, music, art, poetry, literature, the study of philosophy – all these give me joy. But I know that there are times when my appreciation of beauty is dulled and cloyed with ‘earthy’ and mundane thoughts and desires. I have learned to recognise when these thoughts arise; I have techniques which I use to change any particular thought pattern to be more positive and appreciative.
But this is me, not you. I have my way of dealing with me and my understanding of life and its effects. What I do would not suit everyone which is why I am very careful when I coach, because everyone has their view of life and what it means – for them.

All this brings me back to ethics and its importance in everyday life. Open any newspaper or news website and just for a moment contemplate the contents. All the good news is because people have done the right thing – they have been ethical in their relationships with others – they have either not harmed anyone or they have achieved some milestone in personal growth (i.e. rowing across the Pacific Ocean, or some Aboriginal community has stopped the sale of alcohol etc.). All the bad news (apart from some natural disasters or personal tragedies like someone falling off a mountain) is brought about by unethical conduct – person greed, harm to others for personal gain etc, etc. Do these people experience joy? Are they happy?

Just think about it. The antics of the corrupt governor of Illinois are going to have unforseen and unanticipated consequences on Barack Obama’s presidency – he was Illinois’ former senator. Contaminated milk in China; cholera in Zimbabwe; the continuing actions of that dislocated organisation called the Victorian Police; Qantas caught out and fined for price fixing; the total lack of thought for and REAL concern (much hand wringing and tut-tuts) about the plight of the first Australians; political corruption and astonishing ineptitude in New South Wales and Western Australia and ... what state or country should not be listed??
All because people refuse to at least TRY to treat others the way they would like to be treated. Sometimes I feel I am trying to push water uphill but I am persistent and this is something I really feel very strongly about and I am not going to go away. So expect more of the same!!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Illinois Governor's Corruption

Okay! “The governor of Illinois has been arrested on charges of conspiring to sell Barack Obama's recently vacated US Senate seat.

The news that Illinois Governor Blagojevich was taken into custody complicates the matter of filling the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were also accused to trying to "induce purge of newspaper editorial writers," critical of him at the Tribune Company, the US attorney's office said in a statement.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement...” (From ‘The Australian’ web site 10 December 2008).

I know that politics is often considered a ‘dirty’ game and I am no great respecter of politicians, of any persuasion. Just because they hold the positions they do does not mean that I respect them – they have to earn my respect. They can say what they like, it is what they do that counts and which may, or may not, earn my respect.
In this case I am just amazed at the audacity of someone like the governor. Does he (or did he) believe that as governor he is (was) above the law? He is just a man of straw – not worthy of the office of governor. He is just a common felon and a con-man to boot. He fooled the electorate of Illinois into electing him. But what staggers me more than anything is the lack of moral understanding; the lack of the appreciation of values and that any conception of ethics seems to be totally wanting from his psyche, from his understanding as to what it is to be a human being. Maybe he now has an appreciation of the law of cause and effect!

As governor he is obviously not short of money. He has one of only fifty such positions, so he is already in somewhat rarefied atmosphere in American politics – he is head honcho in the state - he has authority, he has power. Very obviously that was not enough.

He must believe that his sole reason for existence is to make money – and the more the better. Now I am the last person to say that having a desire to make money is wrong, because I like money as much as the next person, but not at any cost. Does this bloke actually LIKE himself? When he looks at himself in his bathroom mirror in the morning when he shaves, what does he see? Can he honestly say to himself, if positions were reversed, “ I would like to be governed by me?”

What also alarms me is the is the possible answer to the question, “Is this what unbridled capitalism breeds?” Laws, no matter how tightly enforced will never cover all human failings. There has to be self regulation (self discipline) there has to be trust; there has to be respect not only for yourself but for others. Laws are essential but unless they are applied and followed from the bottom up (and not just enforced from the top down) anarchy will prevail and the ‘rule of law’ will not be worth the paper it’s printed on.

I am going to watch this one with great interest. I hope and trust that my respect for politicians generally is not reduced any further and that he gets what he deserves.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

First Lines

There are some wonderful first lines in books. Two of the best that I recall are, “The Frenchman beside me had been dead since dawn.” – from, “Martin Conisby’s Vengence” by Jeffrey Farnol. Then there is the one I like best which is from “The Arches of the Years” by Halliday Sutherland. The book opens with, “Wanted – a detective to arrest the flight of time.” Wow! It is always an advantage to open a book with a good ‘punch line’, people remember it long after the contents are forgotten. In fact in this instance I don’t believe I ever read the book, I just remember the title and the opening sentence.

But why arrest the flight of time? That would mean to have things and events stay as they were and not to move on, not to grow, not to develop. That would lead to a very poor life outcome indeed. To keep things as they are at present would mean to deny the dynamic that is Life. Life is always present and must always be expressed. That is why there are so many life forms on the planet – all expressing Life. And every life form has its purpose, its reason for existence, all growing in different ways, in different environments. All are threaded together in an amazingly complex web or pattern that we, mere mortals, cannot hope to fully comprehend. Yet without any deep knowledge of Life and its complexity, we are quite prepared to kill Life forms and destroy habitats that support those selfsame Life forms.

All Life forms are interrelated and have a symbiotic relationship in that the sum is greater than the individual parts. We are all, all of us, guilty of the same lack of real concern, of the same propensity to consume – regardless of the ‘cost’; of the same desire to keep things as they were (i.e. we all want job security, don’t we?). No one people are any better than any other. Take for instance the Japanese. They have an ancient culture, they have a wonderful history of poetry, of art, a highly developed appreciation of beauty – their gardens, their bonsai trees, their calligraphy, and yet they slaughter whales and dolphins because of ‘tradition’! The British go fox hunting, because of ‘tradition’. We as children are often ‘expected’ to enter the same form of employment as our parents. We often vote for a particular political party because of the family ‘tradition’ – we have always voted that way!!

Many, many patterns of behaviour are followed in families and communities because that is the way ‘we’ have always behaved. There is little or no thought as to the ‘why’ and whether there are any advantages to be gained by trying to keep things as they were. I mean the Amish in America – refusing to allow TV into their communities and still using horse and buggies – trying to keep things as they always were - are fighting a losing battle. It is quaint and cute in a way (actually I suppose horses and buggies aren’t such a bad idea with today’s high fuel prices), but very limiting. To wish for the ‘old times’ because they have some romantic appeal is to believe in something unreal – wishful thinking. It may be comforting to try to maintain what was. No one really likes the unknown, which is what Life throws up at us on a daily basis. We like to be in our comfort zone, the unknown can be very scary, very confronting. Yet we have to live and life is dynamic and always changing.

What was, is history, and can never be brought back. This present moment is the only ‘time’ that we can actually experience anything and live ‘in’. We cannot live in the past – it has gone. We cannot live in the future – it has not yet arrived. We have no other option than to live NOW and now is always changing, it is always becoming the past (or the future). We cannot ‘arrest the flight of time’.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Rest and Repose

The other day I read some lines which resonated with me, “Every being that acts, acts for the sake of its end, that in its end it may find rest and repose.” Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) a German born philosopher quotes the words.

If you think about those words they are true. We study to learn, we learn so that we can work to earn money to do what? To end up in a position where we “may find rest and repose” – i.e. leisure time, holidays or retirement, either at the end of each day, each week or each year or at the end of our working life. This is what life is for. Anything that gets in the way of this is not only conducive to stress and unhappiness but is really unethical. We are all ‘acting for the sake of our end’, and it is not only us humans. The quote say ‘every being that acts’ – animals, birds – every being, and every being acts for the same end, ‘that it may find rest and repose’. A cow ruminatively chewing the cud, dolphins, a pet dog at the end of a long day playing with children, birds flying home as the evening draws in, all head home from their ‘work’, as do we.

Now this is not to say that we do not find pleasure and fulfilment in helping or giving pleasure to others, doctors, nurses, carers and social workers immediately come to mind as do artists and sportsmen and women. But ultimately we will all find rest and repose at the end of our day.

Anything that gets in the way of this must then be questionable. This is why ethics is so important. Ethics teaches us that anything which is not based on the principle of treating others the way we would like to be treated is not a good idea. Any exploitative action by others which affects the well-being of any life form needs to be questioned and reviewed. All unethical conduct will have the effect of upsetting or preventing a person’s or other being’s rest and repose. Why should we wish to do this? It will only ever be for the purpose of some perceived personal gain – financial or power. But what is generally overlooked in the immediate ‘excitement’ of the perceived gain is that this will immediately trigger the law of cause and effect, the law of consequences, the law that states there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’. Someone has to pay and ultimately it is always the person who perpetrates the unethical conduct who will pay in some way or another. This law is not codified in that any breach of Sect 4 (b) sub sect 22, para 8 will mean a penalty of X, Y or Z. But the Fates in the guise of Nemesis always work their will in some form or other. It has to be that way – I did not invent it – it just is. It must be so, life being common to all beings ( and we do not know what the Life ‘essence’ actually is). Our genes – many of which we share with all life forms – also tell us of our shared heritage.

Therefore let us so order our lives that we interfere as little as possible and bear as lightly as we can on the lives of all other beings so allowing them to reach their rightful state of ‘rest and repose’ at the end each day.