ed's website

This list is not finished. I'm not sure if it will ever be finished! I will add to it as I go along.

• To always develop my personal and political philosophy and act upon it.
• To be both active and reflective. Act, then reflect upon my actions, then act, and so on. Without both, or with a poor balance, I cannot hope to move in a positive direction. I need to think long and hard before I choose a road to go down.
• To be aware of - and challenge - my underlying ideas and values. As E.F. Schumacher writes in his book Small is Beautiful: "we think with or through ideas and that what we call thinking is generally the application of pre-existing ideas to a given situation or set of facts. When we think about, say, the political situation we apply to that situation our political ideas, more or less systematically, and attempt to make that situation 'intelligible' to ourselves by means of these ideas. Similarly everywhere else. Some of the ideas are ideas of value, that is to say, we evaluate the situation in the light of our value ideas." I feel that it is important to be consciously aware of my (as well as other peoples) underlying values and ideas and question them. The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much on the kinds of ideas (or reality tunnels as Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson would say) that fill our minds. Or, as Max Planck once said, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
• To be good to those around me, strangers that cross my path on the street (I need to refresh my first aid knowledge) and the rest of society.
• To try and find balance in my life between narrow self-interests, my friends and family, community or shared-interests, and altruistic or other-interests.
• To "avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that." (John Perry Barlow) This ties in nicely with what Archbishop Oscar Romero once said: "aspire not to have more, but to be more." In our consumerist and materialist world, I must try and seek my own mission in an attempt to countervail the prevailing culture.
• Don't hide in complexity (and try to simplify when possible) - As Peter Adamson writes in the book, Jim Grant - Unicef Visionary: "There is a danger that complexity can itself be a kind of comfort, an excuse for inaction, a kind of liberal paralysis." E. F. Schumacher similarly writes on page 127 of small is beautiful, "It is my experience that it is rather more difficult to recapture directness and simplicity than to advance in the direction of ever more sophistication and complexity. Any third-rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but it takes a certain flair of real insight to make things simple again."
• Don't leave things till the last minute. Face them head on. Make lists of what I have to do, keep them up-to-date and do them! Also keep a personal organiser. Don't let storm clouds of guilt/apprehension build above my shoulders from leaving things left undone.
• Find focus in what you are doing. Don't flicker between lots of different tasks simultaneously. Focus on the task at hand and try and do that to the best of your ability. It is very easy to become sidetracked in our world of distraction.
• To live as sustainably as possible. Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle. I want to grow as many of my own vegetables as possible, cycle as often as possible, and talk to other people about being environmentally friendly.
• To not promise more than I can give. I hate it when people make promises they can't keep. I want to be honest and reliable. I don't want to let people down. It's better to say "No" to people, then promising something I won't do. I need to always imagine the situation that I'm promising myself into and think to myself: "Do I want to do that?" and "Do I have time to do that?".
• To have an understanding and become empowered in as many facets of life as possible (obviously I need to think long and hard about which areas I dedicate my mind to - I only have so much time!). One day I learnt how to use a sewing machine (very handy), how to arrange meetings between businesses and MEPs about software patents and I improved my PHP/html skills.
• Think about how everything is tied together. Everything is inter-connected in one way or another.
• Write down and talk to others as much as I can about what I learn. Make sure I write my diary as frequently as possible (every day if possible) so I don't fall into annoying life pattern loops. Keep myself aware of myself. Also spread the word about what's going on. There's no point of accumulating lots of knowledge if you're not going to share it.
• Keep the living space around me tidy and organised, which includes devising easy access filing systems.
• To be responsible with my money and be on top of any bills, debts or taxes that I owe.
• Become fluent in Spanish.
• To always brush my teeth twice a day.
• Points I haven't written down yet