Fear

Posted on by Duncan Toms

How do you deal with fear? Turn on the radio, read a book, go to a temple, cling to some form of dogma, belief?Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas and beliefs. If you see that fear is destructive, then how do you proceed to wipe the mind clean?

– Krishnamurti

A swifter awareness

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The peculiar tendencies that arise with advancing age must be understood and corrected while we are still capable of detached and tolerant self-observation and study; our fears must be observed and understood now. Our energies must be directed, not merely to the understanding of the outward pressures and demands for which we are responsible, but to the comprehension of ourselves, of our loneliness, our fears, demands, and frailties. There is no such thing as living alone, for all living is relationship; but to live without direct relationship demands high intelligence, a swifter and greater awareness for self-discovery. A lone existence, without this keen and flowing awareness, strengthens the already dominant tendencies, thus causing unbalance, distortion. It is now that one has to become aware of the set and peculiar habits of thought-feeling which come with age, and by understanding them make away with them. Inward riches alone bring peace and joy.

– Krishnamurti, Book of Life, 21 March

Spring Equinox (49/365)

Posted on by Duncan Toms


Today marks the first day of spring, the last day of winter; half way between the shortest day and the longest; the longest night and the shortest. I welcome the spring!

Also, this is the last daily photo with this camera, the Samsung NV11, which has served me well for three years. Tomorrow my new Lumix TZ10 arrives…

Clearing up our own patch

Posted on by Duncan Toms

In a world of vast organizations, vast mobilizations of people, mass movements, we are afraid to act on a small scale; we are afraid to be little people clearing up our own patch. We say to ourselves, “What can I personally do? I must join a mass movement in order to reform.” On the contrary, real revolution takes place not through mass movements but through the inward revaluation of relationship – that alone is real reformation, a radical, continuous revolution. … Surely, we must begin to tackle the problem on a small scale, and the small scale is the me and the you. When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship. And because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery. We fill our hearts with blueprints for world reform and do not look to that one resolving factor, which is love.

– Krishnamurti

The wonders of ‘Wonders of The Solar System’

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The Wonders of The Solar System is my favourite programme right now. It’s presented with a refreshing attitude of awe and wonder by the casual and relaxed Brian Cox who, believe it or not, was in D:ream. Things can only get better. Great locations, great imagery, well written and presented.

Among the things I learnt in Ep 1:

Take all the energy used in one year by one country, the USA.
The sun produces one million times this energy in a single second.

Clouds then clumps of hydrogen collapse under their own gravity, heating up, fusing into helium.
Hotter and hotter, this ignites forming a star, a sun.

The sun accounts for 99% of the solar system’s mass.

VLT stands for… erm, Very Large Telescope.

For those in the UK, the first two episodes can currently be seen here

Digitizing Krishnamurti, Part Two

Posted on by Duncan Toms

At KFT in Brockwood, Hampshire, we have begun the second phase of our project to digitize all of Krishnamurti’s video recordings. Last year we captured all of the archive master tapes. We are now on to production master tapes, which include dubbed languages. We are working more than eighteen hours a day on this, making best use of the rented video players. I am on the early shift, which means six o’clock starts. We are using Final Cut Pro, Matrox MX02, on eight-core Mac Pros, capturing to 10-bit uncompressed QuickTime. Each hour we digitize takes up 95GB of disk space, backing everything up on 2TB drives and then LTO-4 tape. After a month of this, we will be able to focus on releasing most of the video titles on DVD and video download.

Fast Food: How to get as much fat, salt and sugar inside you as possible

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Take Kentucky Fried Chicken. My source called it “a premier example” of putting more fat on our plate. KFC’s approach to battering its food results in “an optimised fat pick-up system”. With its flour, salt, MSG, maltodextrin, sugar, corn syrup and spice, the fried coating imparts flavour that touches on all three points of the compass while giving the consumer the perception of a bargain – a big plate of food at a good price.

Initially, KFC meals were built around a whole chicken, with a pick-up surface that contained “an enormous amount of breading, crispiness and brownness on the surface. That makes the chicken look like more and gives it this wonderful oily flavour.” Over time, the company began to realise there was less meat in a chicken nugget compared with a whole chicken, and a greater percentage of fried batter. But the real breakthrough was popcorn chicken. “The smaller the piece of meat, the greater the percentage of fat pick-up,” said the food designer. “Now, we have lots of pieces of a cheaper part of the chicken.” The product has been “optimised on every dimension”, with the fat, sugar and salt combining with the perception of good value virtually to guarantee consumer appeal.

He walked me through some offerings at other popular food chains. Burger King’s Whopper touched on the three points of the compass – then was altered for further effect. In its first, stripped-down form, the burger was explosively rich in fat, sugar and salt. Then the chain began adding more beef, extra cheese or a layer of bacon. McDonald’s broke new ground in another way – by making food available on a whim. “The great growth has been the snacking occasion. You get hungry, you want something, your mind pushes off the reality of what you ought to eat, and you end up picking up a hamburger and a giant soda or french fries.”

Next they introduced a high-fat, high-salt morning meal. “They took what they learned from the core lunch and dinner menu, and applied it to breakfast. The sausage McMuffin and the egg McMuffin are stand-ins for the hamburger. In effect, you are eating a morning hamburger.”

This kind of food disappears down our throats so quickly after the first bite that it readily overrides the body’s signals that should tell us, “I’m full.” The food designer offered coleslaw as an example. When its ingredients are chopped roughly, it requires time and energy to chew. But when cabbage and carrots are softened in a high-fat dressing, coleslaw ceases to be “something with a lot of innate ability to satisfy”.

via Obesity: The killer combination of salt, fat and sugar | David A Kessler | Life and style | The Guardian.