Back in the 4^th millennium B.C., our ancestors wrote on clay tablets, making greater use of their brains to retain what was being instructed. Eventually we upgraded to quills and pens and leather-bound notebooks. Now we have magically come ‘full circle’ with cute touch-screen offspring that allow us to wirelessly access vast sources of information, without having to write anything down; worst of all, without having to memorise it. This has become our latest human development in brain function – coordinating our interactions on screen to conjure up a ludicrous amount of data we are hardly capacitated to remember these days. We are left wanting for more and dangerously retaining less.

Unfortunately, Generation Y seems to be in truth a Generation ADD or even ADHD, considering the constant bombardment of news, information, and distractions that seem so important to us now. Many people wouldn’t even realise how limited their attention span is as they are too busy skimming from one thing to the next – in fact, this trait seems to be a given these days.

Likewise, few of those living in the developed countries would know to tell which phase the moon is in to understand their heightened sensitivities, or find their bearings at night based on the stars. We are so married to our gadgets and internet that we have forgotten the most basic elements of survival. It is frightening, to say the least, given the geographical turmoil we are all experiencing in different parts of the world. Not to put apocalyptic fears into anyone’s heads, yet the reality is such that so many people are ill-prepared for even reading their location in a new city, without some artefact to show them colourful lines on a virtual map to get from point to point (“Turn left at the next corner. Drive a hundred meters. Turn right. Turn right. You missed it…”).

We think we have reduced the clutter by putting all our books and music into a little pocketsize hard drive with a fancy screen, and yet we panic if that expensive toy gets broken. The stress levels can be more dramatic than losing a shipment of boxes containing the same items in their original format. Just like squirrels, we have a deeply rooted habit of hoarding.

Cut.

Pan to the right side of the brain…

Picture a lush garden with waterfalls and a soft breeze tickling the tree branches. There might be squirrels.

Cue the Zen approach to life…

Whilst it seems we are increasingly drawn towards subliminal slavery to technology, we are also learning to make great use of it. Now you can sit on a bus and read up on the latest nutritional benefits of quinoa, or listen to podcasts of your preferred spiritual mentor.

A lot of us crave a more meaningful existence. Daring to explore our inner callings, decompose anxieties, break destructive patterns, understand what it really means to be human.

Not everyone is going to take off on a weekend yoga retreat, where you can make a more concentrated effort on healing body, mind and soul. I have tried this and quite enjoyed it… admittedly being yoga’d out by the third and final day (hey, it was my first time). I even took my iPod and laptop so I could get some quality writing done between sessions, and found that I never touched one or the other, choosing instead to pull out a book and read it in charming outdoor silence, with hints of a few birds possibly discussing lunch plans.

It would seem these attitudes are at opposite ends of our existential spectrum, yet there is a growing number of people who are sitting somewhere in the middle… technological advances on one hand, determination to maintain all-round balance in their lives on the other.

So, whilst I am hopeful of our natural instinct to nourish spiritual endeavours, embrace deeper relationships with one another, and harbour a more holistic approach towards our personal development… I do of course love a cute gadget that will give me a friendly reminder to step away from the computer, pick up my fountain pen to go write in the sun, and call to wish you a happy birthday. Not to mention play my favourite tunes as I’m walking towards the coffee shop.

The technology around us is advancing at the speed of procreating rabbits, and yet humankind itself can get lazy and lost in this  myriad of gadgetry, thinking we are evolving through it as a species.

Therefore, I would encourage you to ask yourself if all those fancy little toys are truly enabling a more relaxed, meaningful, clutter-free lifestyle, or if they are inadvertently causing more stress than you originally anticipated. Are they truly helping you enhance as a person, or stupefying you? True balance comes from internal focus, not from shiny little objects…

First of all, some might say, “Romance? Why don’t we just start with being nice to each other again?” I hear about people who don’t think twice to help others in need, and I admit on a lot of levels we have become isolated and scared to reach out.

In fact, in this so-called Age of Aquarius, we principally tend to share our love only with those close to us, or strangers who captivate our motherly instincts, as in my case these last few days having no voice. I have been offered tea and healing advice by the bucket-load, and whilst it is endearing, it made me wonder how and with whom we ‘share the love’ these days.

But I won’t question Aquarius today, and shall return to this noble and oft-ignored trait that can qualify us or not as lovers or re-ignite jaded relations…

So, am I romantic, and what does that really mean?

I bow down to the literary mammoths of yesteryear… Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, P. B. Shelley, and countless other writers who have lured us to tears over twists of fate, lovers gone astray or set the foundations for love’s philosophy. I listen to songs that could send diabetics into a panic. I am a dreamer who grew up surrounded by the Arab and Roman heritage of my country, and carries these influences with me wherever I go. A little piece of Andalucía sits on my window ledge, 8,000 kilometres away from its place of origin.

But whilst I tie words together in a particular fashion at times, or drift away to distant worlds with lulling music, I am a firm believer in actions not over-coated sugary sentiments, and the more selfless the more genuine. I am known to do ‘stupid things’ for people at certain times, but these have not been limited to lovers. And I believe that showing them off is presumptuous, which is why I rarely talk about what I have done in the past. The curious will have to wait patiently and judge for themselves.

It’s not a case of listing your accomplishments hoping to win somebody’s favour, or constantly fabricating ‘romantic scenarios’ because this would be contrived and confuse the reality of one’s feelings.

The essence of a true romantic does not lie just in waltzing away to the Blue Danube or indulging in candle-lit dinners for two. Romantics often display their abilities in all elements of life – burning through adversity, breezing past obstacles courageously, washing away somebody’s pain simply by holding hands, or planting their humility firmly in the ground where others brashly claim the spotlight.

Some of us may not consciously make time for romance, but sometimes the simplest, most innocent gesture will be worth more than all the glasses of wine or sunsets we could share.

Romance is magic – that certain something you can’t always put to words. The impulsive spark that surprises you when you least expect it.

Ultimately, romance speaks for itself. And it is certainly not dead.

Anybody who wishes to challenge me on that is welcome to place their bets…

I was just reading an article about two co-habiting sisters who have lost their legal battle to avoid paying an inheritance tax bill to the UK government (see article here) when either of them passes away. They are both over 80, and demand protection of their property as siblings, requesting the same rights as married and gay couples. Strangely enough, their surname is Burden, and a great one they carry with them after this sentence from the courts. My point of interest in this item, however, is not about their specific issue or the verdict, but rather my reaction as I could not avoid squinting with intrigue at a remark made by one of the sisters stating that, “If we were lesbians we would have all the rights in the world.”

If only lesbians did have all the rights in the world…

The most immediate reference to ‘gay rights’ that springs to mind is that of marriage, which spawns inheritance issues among others. Luckily, certain countries such as Spain, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium or South Africa have same-sex marriage rights. In other countries, there are civil union rights which don’t fully qualify as ‘marriage’, but are an encouraging step away from complete legal chastisement. Immigration issues are equally sensitive, if you consider for example that in the US, a ’straight’ US citizen who marries a foreign partner is eligible to bring that person into the United States, whilst long-term same-sex partners in similar situations are denied those very same rights, forcing foreign gay partners to find temporary visas or face separation. So, suffice to say that ‘all the rights in the world’ have not yet been served upon the L, G, B or T communities.

What I do find interesting and inspiring, however, is the fact that the tables are slowly turning with respect to how people view anybody’s rights. Whilst there are still many cases within the gay community pushing for change in legislation and way of life according to the ’straight world’, it is now the rest of the world that is using gay rights issues as examples to fight for other equal rights.

And this, in the name of human rights, should be a matter of pride for everyone.

As I watched news that I could hardly understand except for the translations provided by my friend and the few Turkish words I have managed to memorise so far, I could see proud waves of red flags taking over An?tkabir (the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) in protest against the re-ignited issue of the head scarf from a more religious-oriented government. Sensitivities run deep here, with great divides between public opinion for secular and religious policy, and ultimately way of life.

I am enamoured so far by the little I have seen or read of Turkey from a more historical and perhaps nostalgic perspective. It feels like a pivotal stepping stone between Europe as we have known it for a very long time, and the Middle East. A part of the Mediterranean that I have never explored, and yet which could step so easily from one side to another. And by sides I am not necessarily referring to religious aspects that we are made so aware of today, rather those that seem to define whether a country is to be considered ’safe’ or not. Whilst I wait to see what the coming week that I am here will offer, I have already been cautioned regarding theft etc. and could not help but feel stubborn defiance against casting any shadows over my first visit. It is sad to think of the social stigmas that still prevail, true or not, in such countries.

On a less political note, anybody who has ever driven in Spain will feel comforted by the fact that Turkish drivers share the same passion for owning the roads, if not more…

More later from this roving reporter.

A few days prior to that, I had spent the weekend at a yoga workshop in Comares, during which the subject of ‘group karma’ surfaced in one of our discussions. We were struggling to come to terms with how members of certain parts of the world could exist in such obvious mass suffering – the likes of countries in the African continent, for example – and how these groups seem to reappear again and again throughout history.

First of all, our concept of suffering has become highly visual – unless we see a starved child’s ribs poking out of sun-beaten leather skin, or a mother crying over her baby’s lifeless, fly-ridden body, or blood pouring down somebody’s face after an explosion, we don’t seem to sense their pain or qualify it as suffering. However, in the so-called developed countries we have different types of suffering – drug or alcohol dependencies, suicidal tendencies, mental illnesses derived from a fast-paced style of life, financial stress, threats of terrorism…

So, regardless of our personal sufferings if we have them, there are communities of souls tied together in this ‘group karma’. From here we could list the starving in Sudan, victims of The Black Plague, or those of the Irish potato famine.

It is, no doubt, a difficult concept to stomach, let alone accept. Not only is our personal karma as individuals there to be interpreted and dealt with, but also that which may bind us to a given and recurring group suffering. One hopes, as we should, that this will be overcome through one’s actions and heightened consciousness, so that eventually the group suffering will be dissolved, or that others further along their karmic trail are able to provide for and alleviate them (as we can see from improved efforts worldwide to generate more awareness and aid to communities in need – sometimes, the power of the media does come in handy after all).

But herein lies a question – if, for example, the leader of a given nation sends his troops in to confront another given nation (for whatever reason, justified or not), how much of that karma is his own and how much is he pushing onto that of his soldiers, or are they all tied in to the same karmic knot?

Where does your individual karma merge with somebody else’s? After all, are we not the masters of our own fate?

When we try to define ‘what is meant to be,’ and somebody philosophically brushes another person’s death off as, “Well, that was their fate,” are they able to think of this on the grand scale?

Could they comfortably say the same of the 30-60 million who died in the Mongol Conquests of the 13th Century, 11 million documented who died in the WWII Holocaust, 12 million children in Africa who die of starvation every day, the 3 million who died of AIDS worldwide in 2006, the 200,000 who died in the atomic bomb explosions of Hiroshima & Nagasaki (not to mention the thousands affected in the aftermath), the nearly 3,000 who died on 9-11 attacks in the US, the 191 on 11-M in Madrid’s train bombings, and countless other examples…

Did these people die not because of their race, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs, age, social & economic status, health or location… but purely, and ’simply’, because it was their fate as individuals?

Friday night I was out for dinner with one of my clients and his staff. We were bidding a former member goodbye and fare well in her pursuit of newer pastures green. In amongst the crowd of English & Irish expats, there were two Spanish girls who I see on occasion at the reception area where they all work. We’d never really had a chance to socialise and this proved a great night to get talking. We immediately agreed on how bad television can be for one’s mental health – how it distracts us from our so-called boring lives by showing us how bad and ugly the outside world appears to be. But my discrepancy lies in how normal and drama-free our personal worlds often are. Most of us live in ‘civilised’ areas, where there is no hint of warfare, starvation or devastating climates. Train derailments are so far and few between that yes, they are shocking when they happen, but are admittedly far less frequent than in the Asian subcontinent, for example. Most of our air traffic is quite up to date as well so no great worries about falling out of the sky either. So you could say that our lives are far less ‘endangered’ than the lives of those living in known areas of conflict. So why then, do we have this drummed into our brains, why are we constantly shown only a piece of a world that is only falling apart in selected areas? Why are we not kept more up to date on advances to improve our educational systems, provide more efficient healthcare, reduce negative environmental impact, aid the poorer members of our own communities as well as those in countries that are in conflict…

It’s all well and good to be kept informed of the ‘outside’ world, unlike many countries whose governments and media keep their population in a bubble of isolationism; but when we are shown images of the outside world, why are we only shown the bodies of those who have been murdered by ignorants in far away countries – why are we not told about agreements being reached behind the scenes to improve trade that will aid stability and development? Why are we only shown the artificially ravaged carcasses of slain African elephants but not informed about improved funding, monitoring and protection to safeguard the species and reduce ivory trade? Why are we shown only angry crowds demonstrating against a government’s policy on terrorism when said country hardly sees a bomb scare anymore and is in a delicate stage of transition between ongoing acts of violence and some form of peace?

Why have we allowed ourselves to become disinterested in all these necessary and positive issues, when we know just how badly the rest of the news affects us? You who wake up jaded at life, tired of paying your mortgage, wondering why you go to work stressed if the rest of the world seems to be eroding in violence that’s waiting to hit you… remember to take a closer look at the world you know, the world you live in day to day, and appreciate the positive things that surround you. It’s not so bad after all, is it… or am I missing something?

Recently, I was talking to a friend who complained about famous artists setting up companies in tax-advantageous areas. These people are among the frontline of those politically driven to force a change for the better in terms of health and financial aid to the poorer regions of the world. I was compelled to interrupt my friend’s argument. I can understand the possible hypocrisies that arise from such behaviour, for example, “If those people have so much money then why do they live in such luxurious homes and evade taxes? Why don’t they live like the poor they claim to be defending?”

I say, “Why the hell not?!”

If a person has worked long and hard to get to where they are, what is wrong with making a comfortable life for oneself and still have a conscience to use those extra millions to help others less fortunate? And what is wrong with saving money on taxes when a high percentage of that money is then specifically given to those in need? Can we not help our confused governments spend our money more wisely? In fact, if you look into some charitable organisations’ accounts and deduct all administrative and assorted fees, quite often not even 10% of their generated income is actually passed onto the cause they were set up to support.

We live in different cultures, and there is little point building a mansion in the middle of the out-backs to house others who are still surviving on rubbing two sticks together to make a fire, when they wouldn’t understand how to use its many appliances (no doubt, however, they would learn). This is not to say one is less than the other, but we are admittedly on different levels, and it did take the countries in the so-called First World a long time to get to where we are now. Which is why we should have the right to live in commodity if it so pleases us. This should not, however, negate our ability to empathise or assist those who currently have less so they can move up the ladder too.

After all, the man who hunts his food in the desert may well be happier than the one worrying how to maintain his luxury home or financial assets.

But let’s put the materialistic aspect aside, for the main concern is health and wellbeing… it takes a lot of money to provide optimal aid to poverty-stricken areas. And nobody can deny there is a much healthier cash-flow in our modern-day philanthropists’ coffers than there is in those of most governments the world over. So, let the politicians do their slow bureaucratic thing to pass laws on improved education, human rights, fair trade, etc. Meanwhile, those who can drop cash with little or no stall from the lobbyists should have the freedom to do so without snide remarks from those who are starved of their faith in humanity.

“Oh, did you say this donation was tax deductible?”

Abso-f***ing-lutely…