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Monthly themes for the year

I remember how surprised I was to discover how the days of the week are named after the same planets in our solar system in so many different languages and cultures. Learning a little about the symbolism and mythology of each of the planets allows us to create a rich daily experience with a different theme, or focus, for each day of the week.

I have since felt quite frustrated that the same principle can’t be applied to the months of the year. Not only are the names of the months not shared through the various languages of the world, but the European model isn’t even based on a consistent naming system. Some of the months are named after Gods, like March, named after Mars, some are named after Roman Caesars, like July and August, and others just get a number, as we see in October through to December. I don’t like it! It feels clumsy and inconsistent. Especially in the light of the names of the days.

I’ve looked around but haven’t found any alternative naming system in existence. What was I looking for? Well, a set of names which had symbolic or mythical meanings, as we have with the days of the week, so that I could play with the themes each month which related to those symbols.

I haven’t come up with a set of names, but I have come up with a set of themes, one for each month of the year. Here they are.

January is the start of the new calendar year. It’s named after Janus who faced both forwards and backwards, and can be symbolically represented by a gate. At a gate, we stand on a threshold, about to step from one place to another. January is like this. It’s the time of taking an overview of the year, of starting a new calendar, a new diary, a new journal. It’s a time of resolutions, and broad plans.

February has Valentine’s Day right in the middle, but why restrict this loving theme to only one day? How about making February the month of acts of loving kindness?

March is named after Mars, the God of War, or, perhaps more positively, of strength and power. This would be a good month to pay attention to your personal autonomy and your strengths, to pay attention to both your positive qualities and your assertiveness.

April is the month of the tree blossoms. In Japan, it’s the month of the annual appearance of the Cherry Blossom. This time of year reminds us of transience. This month is a month to celebrate that. To celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of transient blossoms, to be aware of the transience of everything in life, but not to fear that. Instead it’s a time to celebrate and enjoy what we have for just a short time.

May is the month of the flowering buds. It’s a time when Nature reveals some of her potential. Make this the month you do that too. Make May the time to wonder about what may come to pass.

June is the month of midsummer. The month with the longest day. This can be the month to celebrate the light.

July is the beginning of the second half of the year and for many, is the beginning of the holiday season. This is a month to consider rest. A time to pause, relax, take it easy for a while.

August is “Le Grand Depart” in France, the month when everyone sets off to have a holiday somewhere. To get there, they have to travel. It’s good to enjoy your home, but it’s also good to broaden your outlook by travelling and discovering other places.

September tends to be the start of the academic year. Schools, colleges, universities begin their year here. But you don’t need to be a student to learn. We can all learn throughout our whole lives. What would you like to learn this year? Are there any courses you’d like to take? This is the month to plan and begin new skills and new knowledge.

October is a month of berries. It’s a time of fruition. Maybe this is a good month to celebrate that aspect of life? A time to enjoy what’s come to fruition.

November can be a time to reflect as the year draws towards its end. This reflection can be on any, or all, aspects of your life. How is your year going? How are you?

December is the month for gratitude and giving. What are you grateful for, and how could you give to others?

I’ve made a calendar using my own photos to cover these themes for next year. Pop across to the “redbubble” site and search for “bobleckridge” if you’d like to see it.

Linked

Smart World starts by acknowledging the work of two others – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and Andy Clark. I’ve just read Linked by Barabasi. (ISBN 0-452-28439-2) It’s a fascinating book about the rather young science of networks. I agree with the author, that understanding how networks are created and function is going to be absolutely key to our future direction in science. A network, quite simply, is made up of nodes and links. One example is social networks. Think of a piece of paper with the names of several individuals on it and lines drawn between the names of people who know each other. It’s remarkable how quickly information can spread around such a network. Maybe you came across the movie “Six Degrees of Separation” – a story based on the premise that there are only an average of six links between any two human beings on the planet. Turns out that idea, which apparently came from a Hungarian short story, is pretty accurate. But there’s a twist…….sometimes the number of links is way less than six (even between people who don’t know each other). Other kinds of networks you are familiar with are the maps of flight routes you see published in airline magazines, the power grid, and, yes, our dear World Wide Web. In fact, everywhere you look, you’ll see networks. Everything is connected. Nothing exists in isolation. To try and understand how networks develop and how they function, Barabasi takes you on a journey through the world of mathematicians, physicists, social scientists and engineers. It’s quite fascinating. In the process he describes a very clear evolution of this new science. Intially, complex networks were thought to be completely random. But randomly created networks produced by computer modeling turn out not look like real world networks. Real world networks don’t have random distribution of nodes. Some nodes are way more connected than others. Barabasi calls these hubs. Once you introduce the concept of hubs, the mathematical modeling of networks reveal what are known as “power laws” (this is a bit beyond me I’m afraid – maybe Phil can help explain these?) but, as I understand it, if you take a single quality or characteristic in nature, say, height of individual human beings, you’ll get a bell curve. Bell curves look symmetrical and they have steep sides ie there aren’t many “outliers”. Complex, natural networks however have node distributions which can’t be described by bell curves. Instead you get a small number of highly connected nodes (hubs) and a huge number of less connected ones. This characteristic produces incredibly resilient and fast networks. Real life networks are highly resistant to damage and they adapt to change. You can take out lots of nodes and not make much difference to the functioning. To really damage them you have to go for the hubs. Take them out and you bring the system down catastrophically. So, the structure of networks provides both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. Barabasi gives masses of great examples, from epidemiological spread of viruses like HIV, to the functioning of international economic markets, to the spread of ideas throughout civilisations. But one of his most interesting analyses is his critique genetics. How often do you read about “breakthroughs” in mapping the genetic “origins” of various diseases – all with the promise of predictive genetic tests and of treatments based on what is known as pharmacogenomics – finding which genetic precursors determine the responses to which particular drugs. He dismantles this reductionist view very effectively and promotes a network model instead – making what I find to be a convincing argument that the genetic bases of diseases won’t be found in mapping the genome but in mapping the networks of genes. This shift in perspective is crucial. It drives us away from a reductionist consideration of elements and parts towards a holistic consideration of system function by understanding nodes and their connections. He even terms this “postgenomic biology”. I like it! However, it’s at this point that he suddenly disappoints. His chapter 13 is very odd. It’s entitled “Map of Life” and in it he takes this idea of postgenomic biology and applies it in a bizarrely reductionist way, predicting that the future of medicine will be in tests and highly individualised drugs based on eliciting these genetic maps. He thinks you won’t need consultations with doctors any more, just simple blood tests which will be computer analysed and targetted, tailored drugs will then be kind of published on demand and delivered to your door and, voila! you have your own special cure! I’m sorry, but I don’t buy this. I mean, I believe that if we could produce a new generation of highly specific drugs rather than the blunderbust ones we use now that would be great, but what happened to this idea of the science of networks, and how they would change our understanding of everything? Suddenly Barabasi leaps into a reductionist model of disease and healing which is predicated on the idea that each individual is indeed an island. Hasn’t he just spent the rest of the book showing us the importance of mapping connections? Isn’t every individual in fact massively connected not only to other individuals but to all kinds of environments. Isn’t it impossible to understand an individual as context-free? However, don’t let chapter 13 put you off. He really is onto something extremely important here. Once you start to think this way you see networks everywhere and you begin to understand the inescapable importance of connections, and, interestingly, of hubs. We’re at the beginning of this science and I think it’s pretty exciting. Those of you who have read other posts on this blog will be familiar with my references to Deleuze. His philosophy of networks – he preferred the model of the rhizome – predates this scientific development and has probably been one of the important nodes from which this area of study has grown. You’ll also be familiar with the concept of the Complex Adaptive System which I believe is the best model we have so far for understanding human health and illness.

Humanaut Calendar

I’ve created a calendar of 12 of my best images for 2010.

The idea came from my frustration that the names of the months neither mean anything significant to us any more, nor do they even hold to a single scheme for the whole year.

I remember how surprised I was to discover how the days of the week are named after the same planets in our solar system in so many different languages and cultures. Learning a little about the symbolism and mythology of each of the planets allows us to create a rich daily experience with a different theme, or focus, for each day of the week.

I have since felt quite frustrated that the same principle can’t be applied to the months of the year. Not only are the names of the months not shared through the various languages of the world, but the European model isn’t even based on a consistent naming system. Some of the months are named after Gods, like March, named after Mars, some are named after Roman Caesars, like July and August, and others just get a number, as we see in October through to December. I don’t like it! It feels clumsy and inconsistent. Especially in the light of the names of the days.

I’ve looked around but haven’t found any alternative naming system in existence. What was I looking for? Well, a set of names which had symbolic or mythical meanings, as we have with the days of the week, so that I could play with the themes each month which related to those symbols.

I haven’t come up with a set of names, but I have come up with a set of themes, one for each month of the year. Here they are.

January is the start of the new calendar year. It’s named after Janus who faced both forwards and backwards, and can be symbolically represented by a gate. At a gate, we stand on a threshold, about to step from one place to another. January is like this. It’s the time of taking an overview of the year, of starting a new calendar, a new diary, a new journal. It’s a time of resolutions, and broad plans.

February has Valentine’s Day right in the middle, but why restrict this loving theme to only one day? How about making February the month of acts of loving kindness?

March is named after Mars, the God of War, or, perhaps more positively, of strength and power. This would be a good month to pay attention to your personal autonomy and your strengths, to pay attention to both your positive qualities and your assertiveness.

April is the month of the tree blossoms. In Japan, it’s the month of the annual appearance of the Cherry Blossom. This time of year reminds us of transience. This month is a month to celebrate that. To celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of transient blossoms, to be aware of the transience of everything in life, but not to fear that. Instead it’s a time to celebrate and enjoy what we have for just a short time.

May is the month of the flowering buds. It’s a time when Nature reveals some of her potential. Make this the month you do that too. Make May the time to wonder about what may come to pass.

June is the month of midsummer. The month with the longest day. This can be the month to celebrate the light.

July is the beginning of the second half of the year and for many, is the beginning of the holiday season. This is a month to consider rest. A time to pause, relax, take it easy for a while.

August is “Le Grand Depart” in France, the month when everyone sets off to have a holiday somewhere. To get there, they have to travel. It’s good to enjoy your home, but it’s also good to broaden your outlook by travelling and discovering other places.

September tends to be the start of the academic year. Schools, colleges, universities begin their year here. But you don’t need to be a student to learn. We can all learn throughout our whole lives. What would you like to learn this year? Are there any courses you’d like to take? This is the month to plan and begin new skills and new knowledge.

October is a month of berries. It’s a time of fruition. Maybe this is a good month to celebrate that aspect of life? A time to enjoy what’s come to fruition.

November can be a time to reflect as the year draws towards its end. This reflection can be on any, or all, aspects of your life. How is your year going? How are you?

December is the month for gratitude and giving. What are you grateful for, and how could you give to others?

Click on the photos below to go and see the calendar for yourself…..

Why do people get ill?

Why Do People Get Ill. Darian Leader and David Corfield. ISBN 978-0-241-14316-2. This is a book written by a psychoanalyst and a philosopher. Amy spotted a review of it in The Observer. It gripped me from the outset – always a sign of a good book I reckon. In the first few pages these statements caught my eye -

3.5% of the decline in mortality due to infectious disease since 1900 can be attributed to pharmacological intervention

5 – 10% of healthy adults and 20 – 40% healthy children carry it [streptococcus pneumoniae]

Typhus and dysentery will flourish with greater success in defeated armies rather than victorious ones.

The first of those quotes is really interesting because there is now a huge emphasis on drugs as being, if not the only, then certainly the best, treatments (and cures) for most illnesses. Antiobiotics in particular have achieved almost mythological status as saviours of suffering humans. Yet they are only responsible for a tiny percentage of the lives saved from death from infection. What are the big saviours then? Well, clean water, effective sewerage systems, better housing and reductions in poverty are amongst the main ones. This is not news. I learned this in “Sociology in relation to Medicine” (a course in my undergrad medical course at the University of Edinburgh) in 1972 (and it wasn’t new then!)

The second quote tells us that loads of people have “nasty” bugs (we have a terrible tendency to describe some bacteria as nasty and some as nice, entirely on the basis of the potential harm they can cause us – nothing to do with the personality characteristics of bugs!) which apparently don’t seem to be causing them any harm. How come?

The third quote claims that mortality from a serious infection like typhus is affected by the mental state of the individuals who catch the bug. This is one of the key points of this book. These observations are not new to me and they probably are not new to you but when you stop for a moment to think about them they are startling and they tell us loud and clear that illness is not a mechanical process. Illness is always multifactorial. That’s part of the nature of complex systems – they aren’t simple! This sets the tone for the whole book. The thrust of the argument is that it’s whole people who get ill, body and mind, inextricably interfunctioning, and not only that, but it’s whole people, embedded within the environments of their lives who get ill. I use the plural there deliberately. We are embedded in multiple environments, not just physical ones, but also social, cultural and narrative ones. We are meaning-seeking creatures and the fascinating examples in this book illustrate that point beautifully.

The question the authors ask of us is to consider not just what is this disease? but doctors should ask their patients to talk about themselves

No hospitalised patient should be deprived of the opportunity to speak about themself.

Intruigingly they explore the potential for illnesses to emerge at symbolic times and in symbolic ways

Human culture is built up of symbolic structures, involving language, social laws and ritualised practices…..growing up involves the absorption of the social and linguistic structures into the very fabric of the body.

This is a plea for a more human, more humane practice of medicine. A plea for the recognition of the importance of a person’s narrative and the importance of human relationships. They question, for example, the wisdom of a system of delivering health care which results in the patient never seeing the same doctor twice. The current emphasis on protocols and targets is dehumanising. It assumes that every patient with disease “x” can be treated with therapy “y” and it doesn’t matter who actually delivers the treatment. How did we come to value drugs more highly than human beings? Technologies more highly than caring attentiveness?

The health services and bureaucracies of contemporary society are based on a rejection of the very dimension of human narrative.

Their final challenge is -

challenge the thesis that the disciplines basic to medicine are physics and chemistry. Would it be absurd to suggest that literature and philosophy would make better candidates, as they encourage the study of human beings living in a world of meaning.

Hear, hear, guys! Occasionally you read a book you wish ALL doctors would read. This is one such book. Sadly, a lot of doctors don’t read very much, claiming to be “too busy”. Suggest your doctor friends buy it for “holiday reading”.

2010 Weekly Diary for Humanauts

I just created a weekly diary for “humanauts” filling it with a few dozen of my best photos to help you both deepen and enlarge your experience of life this year. I am so pleased with the quality of this book – blurb is a great service, and this just surpasses my wildest expectations. Come and have a look. Tell me what you think.

2010 Weekly Ca…

By Dr Bob Leckridge

Book Preview

Meaning-full Disease

Meaning-full Disease. Brian Broom
ISBN 978-1-85575-463-8

I read a reference to Brian Broom’s work in “Why Do People Get Ill?“, and like that book, his “Meaning-full Disease” should go on every doctor and would-be doctor’s reading list – not just on their shelves, but in their active reading list. Professor Broom leads the post-graduate programme in MindBody Healthcare at Auckland University of Technology and works as a physician specialising in allergies and clinical immunology, a psychotherapist and a mindbody specialist in Christchurch. That tells you something about what you might expect from this book. His main area of interest is psychosomatic disease. This is a term which has fallen out of favour and come to mean illnesses without any associated physical disease. However, it is making a comeback thanks to work like this and Leader and Corfield’s work amongst others. It is particularly making a comeback because of its focus on the links between the body and the mind in illnesses where there are significant pathological changes to be found.
Broom explores the truly fascinating observations that patients’ physical diseases are often best understood by uncovering the meanings that their illnesses have for them. He pleas for a more holistic, more humane practice of medicine by placing the scientific world view in its rightful place – not as the bearer of all truth, but as a subset of experience.

“the lifeworld is a rich, multidimensional, experienced reality of which the scientific world is a part-representation, a reduction, or an abstraction.”

He sets out a powerful argument for seeing both subjective and objective experience as different manifestations of an underlying unified phenomenon, referring to both phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, and Japanese writers, Yasua and Ichikowa (the latter he quotes as saying “my ‘object-body’ and my ’subject-body’ are inseparably united in their deeper layer, and cannot be separated clearly and decisively, except through intellectual abstraction”. I particularly enjoyed his reflections on this so-called divide between objective and subjective where he says to touch your left hand with your right – as you do this you experience you left hand objectively and in the same moment subjectively your left hand feels touched. He goes on to muse about the position of hands pressed together in prayer which similarly dissolves the barriers between subjective and objective. A lovely image and a nice way to get us thinking about these two ways of experiencing the world.
There is much more to illness than the biomedical model elucidates for us. This in no way devalues the model which is still a powerful way to not only conceptualise disease but to treat it, but trying to understand a person’s whole experience by seeking what lies behind the pathology requires quite other skills which doctors are sadly not so strongly encouraged to acquire. One of the best passages in Professor Broom’s book is where he describes the process of his work moving back and forth in a consultation between the “thing of the illness and it’s meaning”. Sounds like how a consultation should be.

Indra’s web

Welcome to humans not zombies…

I have another blog – heroesnotzombies across on wordpress.com.

I decided to run this related blog too for a number of reasons. Wordpress.com is a really great place to start blogging. It’s free, it’s easy and the people who run it are incredibly helpful. If you’d like to start running a blog, I’d recommend you start at wordpress.com.

So why start another blog NOT on wordpress.com?

Well, there are two reasons. First of all, wordpress.com, being free, has certain limitations. You can’t add any code containing javascript for example (OK, too technical! Trust me, you can pretty much live happily without that, but there are some interesting tools, including google analytics which need you to put code into your site) Secondly, wordpress.com is TOTALLY non-commercial. I take a lot of photos and I’ve often been asked if I’d make them available for people to buy as prints. I can’t do that on wordpress.com.

So, this related blog is to help me learn some new blog/site tools, and to be able to sell some of my creative work. I’ll start with some photos, and later, I’ll add some of my writing.