or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
Mental Health
[ 6 minute read ]
This post was originally posted: Monday 22 September 2025 and has been reposted for relevance to World Mental Health Day on Friday
There is an open invite posted earlier today at 10:22
A Zoo of Chimeras of Thinking
Good Crikeyness! Everything is so monetised these days. I have a website still under construction but active and viewable (hegemo.co.uk) that I get nothing from. I get no money or reward or acclaim. It, I suppose, is an element of social responsibility, or a social enterprise if I want to feel that I am making a positive contribution to the world. I have to pay for stuff now that was free in May this same year (2025). There will be critics to the content, particularly from the mental health camp of supposedly trained and normal-thinking people. I am fairly well convinced, though, that they do not see themselves as negotiators in a hostage-taking scenario, when they should. I suspect, that the first thing critics to my approach will do is fail to recognise that the current content (22 September) comes from a single individual with a mind. A mind that is subject to its environment; the immediate world around the body in which it sits. While isolation, at certain times of our lives is favourable, it is not, I suggest, very helpful, when experienced for long periods, in an environment of increasing social interaction.
However, someone used to long or extended periods of isolation is an alien to a planet of chit-chatting. The critics, I suspect, will not see it this way. If there is a planet somewhere in space that is almost identical to ours, but has different realities, a different past, future and present, most of us, I suggest, would be fascinated to learn all about it? While I would not suggest that any one of us humans on Earth with our own national histories is as fascinating as someone from an alternative planet, if anyone indigenous to Earth has a different historical pattern, I think I am safe in stating that each one of us is still uniquely interesting.
Unfortunately, out of eight billion of us on Earth only about one hundred and nine handfuls of us can actually use our languages and bodies sufficiently well to compel people to listen to us. Obviously, I have no idea of the real number of fascinating people with communication skills. They do, however, need to have both something to say and be able to say it well, don't they? I haven't met all of them yet, so.....
'Nuff said, you get the point.
Confidence is something that grows in us while we are perceiving that others are finding us interesting. Personally, I have had the most anguished times in many conversations in which I have been outlining a position and 'spiralling in' to hone a point, when I get the feeling that the listening person is thinking their own thoughts around the multi-faceted subject, and reached a strong position that is far from the one I am trying to portray.
'Oh, please stop thinking! Just listen until you have heard my conclusion.'
Too late! My conclusion will inevitably meet a different one. A fight will then occur between the two, and because the alternative conclusion is on home ground, it is likely to be cheered and encouraged, so it almost always wins.
When we meet another human, I suggest, we consider them to be the same as us. 'What is new?' we ask, albeit obliquely. 'How are you?' means 'Hello' politely. There is an expectation that the person we have just met cannot adequately convey anything interesting to us beyond, that is, what we are hard-wired to want. We crave knowing where good food is, and how we can attain it; procreation; and where danger is. It is only recently that we want to know about the Arctic or a desert located somewhere, where we might go one day, but that visit is highly improbable.
Right there in front of us, is someone with a past, living in the present environment, with a hope for the future. "Not interested. Don't care. Just entertain me somehow, because even though I can never remember that I have a past in the present environment with hopes for the future, I absolutely think I am different to you because I am healthy." It is a default position. Overweight, elderly, unfit, and silly, we ignore all of it while our brain seeks some kind of succour from the stuff that ails it; ourselves.
It is not you that makes me feel rough; it is me. It is me because I forget that you are only putting on a play, an act that serves to protect you; an act that modern society demands from each of us because it is a hodge-podge of all of us that creates an hegemony of ideas and solutions. Today, I had a long conversation with someone who, at the end of it, made sure that I was aware that she would make notes for someone else to get a picture of what was said during our meeting. I told her that she will only promote a conversation between someone else and my avatar; an avatar created from her notes; an avatar that I shall be compelled to comply with. Far better that I make my own avatar and comply with that one, isn't it?
You might, by now, have formed your own conclusions to my words. 'This idiot is trying to start a revolution! He wants to change the way we think.' Dangerous stuff, when it is spelt out like that, isn't it? But, you are not wrong. Like countless people before me, I cannot fathom a way to hold up a banner that says, 'It is okay to cry' without being hailed as a softie weirdo loser, a soufflé that can stand no knocks. It is true that I have been felled by a cruel axe that cut me deeply with every stroke. I was a young sapling and easily chopped. I grew back, but not as a tree with a single trunk, like every other tree in a forest. I am the tree that hikers, no, not hikers because that presupposes possession of some interest in an environment; I am the tree that passers-by look at and point out to the other passengers in the vehicle that whisks then speedily along. That isn't a car or a train, by the way; it is the way we live our lives and the pace of them.
The hikers, fleeting as they are, tilt their heads to one side and ponder for a short while before they think about where to find food, procreation, and what is dangerous. I mentioned, before, that I want to build a zoo of stories and mental positions for hikers to visit. None of us, it seems, want wild thoughts to be roaming around biting and clawing at the safe thoughts of where to find food, procreation, and what is dangerous, so it seems logical to shape those animals and recognise the shape of them, and then, even for a modicum of validation, show off our own chimeras. In effect, create avatars that individually belong to us and can be re-shaped over and over again, but only by the owner.
'Look! Look! This one is really weird!'
We are not allowed to do that! the Government won't let us. How can we ever be able to understand something if the 'something' is always shrouded in secrecy, and no-one can talk about it? I am not suggesting that we pillory people and laugh at their failing or incapacity to succeed, or conform to our idea or version of success. Far from it. I am suggesting that we recognise that it is beneficial to laugh at, be amused, disgusted by, or jealous of, other people's shaped and deliberately displayed chimeras of understanding and perception, as long as we do not do this to the persons themselves. Like pieces of art works like Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' we gawk and gape and try to reach deeper into it, and simultaneously ourselves, by attempting to understand how the image came to be. Many of us might simply glance at that painting and make an off-hand statement such as, 'That's how I feel' or 'That's how I feel when.....' Why do we do that? Why don't we spend some time shaping what we are thinking? I want to 'experience' more fascinating chimera's that can live in a zoo with 'The Scream' painting hanging on a wall.
A Zoo of Chimeras of Thinking reposted
All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
[ 6 minute read ]
This post was originally posted: Monday 22 September 2025 and has been reposted for relevance to World Mental Health Day on Friday
There is an open invite posted earlier today at 10:22
A Zoo of Chimeras of Thinking
Good Crikeyness! Everything is so monetised these days. I have a website still under construction but active and viewable (hegemo.co.uk) that I get nothing from. I get no money or reward or acclaim. It, I suppose, is an element of social responsibility, or a social enterprise if I want to feel that I am making a positive contribution to the world. I have to pay for stuff now that was free in May this same year (2025). There will be critics to the content, particularly from the mental health camp of supposedly trained and normal-thinking people. I am fairly well convinced, though, that they do not see themselves as negotiators in a hostage-taking scenario, when they should. I suspect, that the first thing critics to my approach will do is fail to recognise that the current content (22 September) comes from a single individual with a mind. A mind that is subject to its environment; the immediate world around the body in which it sits. While isolation, at certain times of our lives is favourable, it is not, I suggest, very helpful, when experienced for long periods, in an environment of increasing social interaction.
However, someone used to long or extended periods of isolation is an alien to a planet of chit-chatting. The critics, I suspect, will not see it this way. If there is a planet somewhere in space that is almost identical to ours, but has different realities, a different past, future and present, most of us, I suggest, would be fascinated to learn all about it? While I would not suggest that any one of us humans on Earth with our own national histories is as fascinating as someone from an alternative planet, if anyone indigenous to Earth has a different historical pattern, I think I am safe in stating that each one of us is still uniquely interesting.
Unfortunately, out of eight billion of us on Earth only about one hundred and nine handfuls of us can actually use our languages and bodies sufficiently well to compel people to listen to us. Obviously, I have no idea of the real number of fascinating people with communication skills. They do, however, need to have both something to say and be able to say it well, don't they? I haven't met all of them yet, so.....
'Nuff said, you get the point.
Confidence is something that grows in us while we are perceiving that others are finding us interesting. Personally, I have had the most anguished times in many conversations in which I have been outlining a position and 'spiralling in' to hone a point, when I get the feeling that the listening person is thinking their own thoughts around the multi-faceted subject, and reached a strong position that is far from the one I am trying to portray.
'Oh, please stop thinking! Just listen until you have heard my conclusion.'
Too late! My conclusion will inevitably meet a different one. A fight will then occur between the two, and because the alternative conclusion is on home ground, it is likely to be cheered and encouraged, so it almost always wins.
When we meet another human, I suggest, we consider them to be the same as us. 'What is new?' we ask, albeit obliquely. 'How are you?' means 'Hello' politely. There is an expectation that the person we have just met cannot adequately convey anything interesting to us beyond, that is, what we are hard-wired to want. We crave knowing where good food is, and how we can attain it; procreation; and where danger is. It is only recently that we want to know about the Arctic or a desert located somewhere, where we might go one day, but that visit is highly improbable.
Right there in front of us, is someone with a past, living in the present environment, with a hope for the future. "Not interested. Don't care. Just entertain me somehow, because even though I can never remember that I have a past in the present environment with hopes for the future, I absolutely think I am different to you because I am healthy." It is a default position. Overweight, elderly, unfit, and silly, we ignore all of it while our brain seeks some kind of succour from the stuff that ails it; ourselves.
It is not you that makes me feel rough; it is me. It is me because I forget that you are only putting on a play, an act that serves to protect you; an act that modern society demands from each of us because it is a hodge-podge of all of us that creates an hegemony of ideas and solutions. Today, I had a long conversation with someone who, at the end of it, made sure that I was aware that she would make notes for someone else to get a picture of what was said during our meeting. I told her that she will only promote a conversation between someone else and my avatar; an avatar created from her notes; an avatar that I shall be compelled to comply with. Far better that I make my own avatar and comply with that one, isn't it?
You might, by now, have formed your own conclusions to my words. 'This idiot is trying to start a revolution! He wants to change the way we think.' Dangerous stuff, when it is spelt out like that, isn't it? But, you are not wrong. Like countless people before me, I cannot fathom a way to hold up a banner that says, 'It is okay to cry' without being hailed as a softie weirdo loser, a soufflé that can stand no knocks. It is true that I have been felled by a cruel axe that cut me deeply with every stroke. I was a young sapling and easily chopped. I grew back, but not as a tree with a single trunk, like every other tree in a forest. I am the tree that hikers, no, not hikers because that presupposes possession of some interest in an environment; I am the tree that passers-by look at and point out to the other passengers in the vehicle that whisks then speedily along. That isn't a car or a train, by the way; it is the way we live our lives and the pace of them.
The hikers, fleeting as they are, tilt their heads to one side and ponder for a short while before they think about where to find food, procreation, and what is dangerous. I mentioned, before, that I want to build a zoo of stories and mental positions for hikers to visit. None of us, it seems, want wild thoughts to be roaming around biting and clawing at the safe thoughts of where to find food, procreation, and what is dangerous, so it seems logical to shape those animals and recognise the shape of them, and then, even for a modicum of validation, show off our own chimeras. In effect, create avatars that individually belong to us and can be re-shaped over and over again, but only by the owner.
'Look! Look! This one is really weird!'
We are not allowed to do that! the Government won't let us. How can we ever be able to understand something if the 'something' is always shrouded in secrecy, and no-one can talk about it? I am not suggesting that we pillory people and laugh at their failing or incapacity to succeed, or conform to our idea or version of success. Far from it. I am suggesting that we recognise that it is beneficial to laugh at, be amused, disgusted by, or jealous of, other people's shaped and deliberately displayed chimeras of understanding and perception, as long as we do not do this to the persons themselves. Like pieces of art works like Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' we gawk and gape and try to reach deeper into it, and simultaneously ourselves, by attempting to understand how the image came to be. Many of us might simply glance at that painting and make an off-hand statement such as, 'That's how I feel' or 'That's how I feel when.....' Why do we do that? Why don't we spend some time shaping what we are thinking? I want to 'experience' more fascinating chimera's that can live in a zoo with 'The Scream' painting hanging on a wall.
Samaritans phone number 116 123 https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/