BARBICAN LIFE


days to watch someone apparently speaking to nobody, animatedly, while walking down a street, immersed in a private excitement, conflict or crisis on a smart device. When I came home carrying a baby cot just a dozen years ago, nothing like this would ever be seen. Is feeling ‘stuck’ a byproduct of physical isolation I wondered? Countries which have traditionally been associated with insularity seem


and those of one’s immediate neighbours or family. Today, the world screams at us to be noticed, and increasingly, perhaps because we have to move at a slower pace, mothers are seen as the embodiment of intellectual sclerosis – ‘stuck at home’ we say, as if there was nothing there to do. Even the newspaper, increasingly redundant since the arrival of blogs, seems at first almost irrelevant to this slower life - to be told that the LIBOR scandal has had a wide-ranging set of effects, and that three women in Ohio endured ten years of captivity and who knows what else besides, without anybody noticing. Motherhood demands parallel thinking all the time though – you have to think from your child’s perspective - Is this appropriate news ? Can I afford to leave the paper where I have put it down ? None of it says that sense of financial prudence is a good idea, nor does the


John Rogers


to have understood that it is not good to be inward looking, and moved towards opening up. China, for example, has spread its wings into Africa, and is now setting up a development bank to lend to it, offering to train thousands of Africans in the coming years. Yet here in Britain, we seem to be withdrawing into ourselves – look at this vote for cutting ourselves off from Europe. Does this make sense ? Are we taking time to consider what will happen if Britain does come adrift from its neighbouring landmass with which more than 60% of its trade resides? We need to take the time to reflect, and not rush into a decision, I thought, as I bought a coffee on the way back from the shops.


Coffee shops from America have sprung up everywhere, serving Brazilian coffees and ‘baristas’ have been trained to slow down to give the impression of your drink being made with care. Everything else has speeded up.


In Wallace’s time, we were limited by the darkness of night – roughly half the hours of the day were circumscribed by the glow of the candle flame – time for rest and dreams. Without the newspapers of today, those dreams are likely to have been about one’s personal interests


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sensationalism let up for a moment to state the obvious : that a part of one’s civic duty is to switch on one’s brain and think of one’s neighbours. Perhaps it might give an opportunity to start a conversation – I left it. He would soon be back from school, after his current affairs club. Schools seem to claim all of upbringing for themselves What are the schools unlikely to provide though? Many things, according to the radical reformers. Careers advice which will fit tomorrow’s child is clearly something which they won’t address with any accuracy: Sir Ken Robinson tells us that today’s education is killing creativity – but does not tell us what we can do to mitigate that, other than


change the educational paradigm. And while they go about making that change?


The science journals tell us that tomorrow’s industrial revolution is nano-technology: The engineered matrix into which humanity is being ushered involves a gradual takeover of biology and all life forms. School science does not even touch this - The future will show us a melding of man and machine, in an effort to engineer a better quality of life. Quantum physics, electromagnetism and nanotechnology are the most likely means, according to today’s science graduate students. John Rogers of the University of Illinois has been injecting a mouse’s


brain with a light emitting diode (LED) to light up relevant parts of it, and thus release dopamine, as a reward for preferred behaviours: some part of my psyche shivered with fear, even while his ingenuity and likely therapeutic benefits were registering – dementia may soon become a thing of the past. Might we also take to manipulating each other using light injected into our brains ? I hope I shall be dead by then, though the ‘conversation’ in the ether today is about just this – should tagging be considered in order to prevent a long term kidnapping like that in Ohio ? Civil liberties advocates from all corners of the world are pointing out that therein lies danger – in the hands of all governments, absolute power through such technology, will inevitably corrupt absolutely. I logged in and agreed.


Perhaps it is a mother’s work to point out that the news can be used to teach real lessons in life for children. I went back to fundamental principles:


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