A few days ago I cleaned the door on my washing machine. I honestly think that this is the best thing I have ever done. Every time I go past it, it catches my eye and it’s as though the washing machine pays me a compliment. “Well done,” it says. If it could, it would tip its hat or nod. Actually, here’s a good question, if your washing machine was a person would it be male or female? I know people usually ask this kind of thing about their cars, but hey.

I am ever astounded at where I find satisfaction. I always thought it would be in a really great job, something where I was saving the world on a regular basis, but apparently, no. You can find meaning in the nice, clean glass of your washing machine door. There it is folks. Who would have thought it.

The washing machine in question is currently doing a load. It’s on its last rinse cycle, and I’m enjoying the sound it’s making. I just walked past it and glanced in. You know, just to check on how things were doing. It reminded me of how as a kid I used to be mesmerised by our washing machine. It totally fascinated me. There’s something about spinning that I literally cannot take my eyes off. I think it’s because it’s continually moving but going nowhere.

You know, if ever I were to take up meditation, I would without a doubt use a washing machine as an aid. It totally absorbs my attention. In fact, just now I happened to look in, and found myself saying, “Wow, this is better than TV.” A bunch of clothes in a metal drum, soaked in soapy water — better than TV. What does that say about me? I think probably that I occupy some position on the autistic spectrum. Well, I am very proud to occupy whatever position I may occupy.

(By the way, isn’t it rotten that we label this on the same scale as a disorder? It totally stinks. By rights, “male” is a position on the autistic spectrum. So is “genius”. Can’t wait for society to wake up and let people be who they are without trying to cut them down or make everyone the same.)

All this has made me think about being a child, and about the bits of me that I have very stubbornly never allowed to grow up. For example, I still really like using an umbrella. I have defended this excitement, viciously and heroically, from all attempts at maturity. Why would anyone want to lose that? It makes rain fun!

So here is my musing: small pleasures have a surprisingly big impact on your happiness.

I had a pretty miserable time as a student. I was expecting it to open up my life, give me direction, answer all the questions I had, like what I was going to do with my life, who I was, etc. etc.

It didn’t!

Instead I found independence difficult, even though it was that funny kind of semi-independence where you went home at the holidays. I reckon most people don’t get a black-and-white “leaving home” experience, you do it (psychologically at least) over some years, I guess. But anyway. I found my student experience quite disappointing. I didn’t feel like I made the lifelong friends I had hoped I would make. I felt I’d left them all behind back at home. (In reality, I did make them, it’s just you don’t recognise them as such when you’re right there!) I didn’t get any epiphany moments as to what my career would be.

My student experience was one of confusing, half-formed feelings that melded into one another. It was hard to tell one apart from the other, despite my most strenuous analytic efforts.

And it just occurred to me, meeting up with a friend from those days, that not a lot has changed. Those feelings are still all mixed up and confusing, four years on. Now, there’s just more distance between me and them. I can look at them as an observer. It’s like visiting a museum.

I still have those same questions, too, but they’re not the menacing monsters they used to be. I have no idea how to answer, “Who am I?” but I’ve realised it’s not a question you can answer in words. Or not completely at least. Plus “I” is something that keeps changing, anyway.

Life is messy and refuses to fit into the boxes I try to put it in. But I like that. I guess I have always liked it, but back then “like” seemed to have a whole lot more pain in it. I don’t know. I haven’t lived life perfectly, but then no-one has, and I don’t believe that anyone really knows what “perfect” is anyway, so it’s effectively a meaningless question, but it’s funny how those questions we can’t quite answer are the most important. And enjoyable to try to answer! You have to answer them not just with thoughts thought, or words spoken (or written) but with life lived. You spell them out with the trail of the life you lead.

I am a thinker. You may or may not have noticed. And I’ve been thinking about being a thinker and I think there are five things that you need — if you’re a thinker.

Output

Instead of just thinking, do something with your thoughts. Don’t just let them rattle around your head. Write them down. Keep a blog. Outputting your thoughts helps refine them and develop them. If you can articulate them, you can understand them better.

Discussion

Other people are a really great input for new ideas and points of view. Other people see things differently, and you can expand the way you think. Learning new things is the whole reason for thinking in the first place!

Exposing your ideas to other people helps cut away what’s rubbish, and it gives you a more objective view of your own thinking. There’s a real danger of becoming pretentious and getting lost in your own head. Discussion keeps your mind open.

Non-thinker friends!

Non-thinkers are almost the best type of different viewpoint! Don’t be annoyed by people who don’t think about stuff as much as you do: you can learn loads from them. Don’t be tempted to see them as shallow, either. Sometimes being “deep” leads you to being depressed and self-absorbed, and the best remedy for that is fun. Keep in mind that thinking is a “side-project” for life. If you live entirely out of your head, you’re not living life to the full.

Thinking time

I find that thinking recharges me. It’s one of my strengths, and I want to develop it (another reason for the first three things on this list). But thinking time is really important for everything. If you run a business, have a family, want to improve your career, whatever.

Plan it. Do it deliberately.

Know yourself

Learn how best to release your own thinking power. When do you think best, day time or evening? In busyness or quiet?

For me, it’s what I’m doing that affects how I think the most. If I’m doing nothing, I can’t think. I feel claustrophobic and stale. My thoughts just idle and go nowhere — unless I can write copious amounts. I need a sense of movement. Unsurprisingly then, I find a connection between my feet and my brain. If I’m walking, my thoughts flow freely and naturally.

If I’m walking and suddenly stop, it’s like hitting a wall: my thoughts scatter. If I change direction, or go a different way to my usual route, I find my thoughts change direction too. Funny, but that’s how my mind works!

So those are my top tips on thinking. Hope they help :)

How strange that there should be life forms on Earth that aren’t conscious. How incredibly strange. It just strikes me as so incredibly odd that there should be life forms that spend their whole life not thinking, perceiving, seeing … just amazes me.

They’re just as complex, biochemically, as animals. They have strategies for reproducing themselves just like animals do, but they don’t rely on behaviour. Isn’t that amazing? They can move, just like animals, (think of Mimosa plants — read more on wikipedia).

I find it amazing. Makes me think about what it means to be alive. What counts as “alive”? I know we get taught that it’s those seven things, MRS GREN — movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition, but that’s because science education is horribly limited. Our education system doesn’t teach us how to think for ourselves. It makes me really angry, actually. Our education system is all about fulfilling the syllabus requirements. Literally checking off items on a list.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a pop at teachers. It’s teachers who have the difficult task of somehow inspiring kids whilst at the same time burdening them down with mindless, task-driven drivel (thanks, exam boards and the government!). But, I guess this is life, and this is the world we live in. Frustration can lead to freedom if you treat it right.

As I was saying … science education is horribly limited. It teaches nice little neat theories and nothing of the process of science, or how these nice little theories can suddenly be thrown out in a matter of a year or two. In the 20s everyone thought that physics had reached its limits and would soon be out of questions. Then along came quantum theory and everyone suddenly revised pretty much everything, and they’re still going.

And yet this isn’t even heard of in science education. There’s no philosophy or history of science — which surely must be vital in science education, otherwise there’s no context for present day theories nor is there any sense of connection between science and other disciplines — or the importance of science to everyday life. Without knowing the pitfalls and successes of science, all the struggles and failures, frauds and geniuses, science is just a dry, dull subject with no human interest.

Anyway. I’m going back to my sense of wonder at the world. Thanks for listening, if you got this far :)

Taking responsibility isn’t the same thing as taking the blame. Taking responsibility for a mess means that you get to clear it up. It’s a positive thing because fixing things is always positive.

Taking the blame means being lumbered with a problem: taking responsibility means being lumbered with the solution.

This is especially important to remember when it really is your fault. If there’s a mess in your life, don’t just take the blame. (E.g. “I’m crap, I’m useless, I’m going nowhere.”) Take the responsibility too, because otherwise you’re just taking the weight of a problem without being empowered to do anything about it.

I’m reading Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath.

It’s one of the most refreshing books I’ve ever read, I think. I studied biology at university, and I have amused myself for endless hours thinking about the tension between creationism and science. This book doesn’t address that issue directly, but does talk around it somewhat, focussing on some of the claims made by Richard Dawkins as to the validity of faith in the wake of science.

Happily, McGrath doesn’t try to settle the question as to whether evolution is true or not. That’s a far too complicated and scientific question to try to resolve in one book, and it’s one that will only really be solved given another hundred or so years of research and development. Evolution is too big and too fundamental to modern biology. Creationists treat it as though it were a sideline theory that can be done away with harmlessly, but it’s not: it’s the whole foundation of current biological thinking, with massive implications for every single discipline within biology, from animal behaviour to biochemistry.

C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Evolution has the same position in biology. The view currently is that evolution makes sense of literally everything. To question evolution is to question biology, it’s that central.

Which is why it was such a wonderful relief to find McGrath leaving the question to the scientific community. Christianity is open to such a lot of intellectual ridicule because of the noisy protestations of a few people who treat evolution like some great evil of society, like drugs. They argue that it leaves people thinking that life is pointless, and that people are worthless, the product of a series of accidents.

Well, I think that’s rot. It’s lazy thinking and bad theology. No-one got depressed because they learnt about evolution. You can’t blame post-modernist despair on science. No, post-modernist despair is the fault of post-modernism, which in turn is the fault of, you guessed it, human nature. To blame despair on evolution is exactly the same as criticising faith because fundamentalists exist. Evolution produces despair no more than faith produces narrow-mindedness.

No, the thrust of McGrath’s book is pointing out where Dawkins draws invalid conclusions about faith, and the impact that science has on faith, with focus on evolutionary thinking. I don’t want to go into too much detail, since you should just buy the book if you’re interested. But the main impact this book has had on me has been to restore my intellectual dignity. Dawkins makes some pretty offensive comments about people with faith, and reading some of the material about creationism on the internet, you begin to wonder if he isn’t right. McGrath, unlike those creationist cranks, is cool-headed, and writes with clarity, logic and authority.

If you’re a Christian and have been struggling with the question of evolution and faith, I recommend this book. If you have a perception that logic and reason are a threat to faith, I recommend this book.

Finally, if you’re an atheist, and you see Christians as people who have left their brains behind, I recommend this book. No, in fact I challenge you to read this book and really think about what it says.

Well, hello!

I’d like to start off my new season of posts with some thoughtful ones on a topic I think about quite a lot. It’s mental health!

Now I know that the tone of this blog might get you to think otherwise (after all there is a link at the top of the page that says “blurry dog hat”). But actually I am quite a thoughtful person. Mental health is obviously really important to people’s lives, but quite often we overlook it. If we’re ill, we go to the doctor, take some medication, do something about it, but if we have poor mental health, we often don’t know what to do, or we can even be completely unaware of it.

Maybe that’s because “mental health” is a scary word. Or maybe it’s because we don’t think of it as “mental health”, for the most part. In this modern world of analysing everything and giving it a world, “mental health” is just another name for “happiness”. And most of us are searching for happiness, are we not?

Happiness is one of those concepts like “success” that everyone recognises, but no-one can quite put into words in a way that describes it once and for all. Since people have been thinking about them for so long, and there are still no answers, we can probably conclude that no-one will ever come up with an exhaustive description of what happiness (or success, or forgiveness, or love, or faith, etc) actually is.

I have found that it is helpful to think of these concepts as people that you get to know. It would be impossible to fully capture who I am in a sentence or two. You might describe my appearance, or location, or go over a potted history of my life, but it’s not likely that you will capture all of who I am.

It’s the same with happiness. Don’t waste time trying to figure out what it will take to make you happy, before you get happy. Just get to know happiness like you would a friend. Learn along the way.

So there’s going to be a series of posts about happiness/mental health, and some of the things I’ve learnt that help keep my mental health ticking over nicely. I hope you find them helpful!