Heart of the Gum Forest

M Wright David H.

Description

The book is an exploration to which everyone who has been to school is entitled. It is a reflection of earlier impressions that may have been implanted. It discusses the many features of students' lives that have left them feeling uncertain. The ultimate end is to indicate that no definite objectives are ever realised. Events vary. They are applicable only to given moments. The purpose of the book is to illustrate that no single ambition ever wholly satisfies. By employing the methods of other authors, by having what may be called a poetic intention, the object of the book is to demonstrate how variable purposes tend to be.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528992435
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

T he H eart of the G um F orest
David H. M. Wright
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-05-28
The Heart of the Gum Forest About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter One: Search for the Heart Chapter Two: Ground to Being Chapter Three: Indefinite Sea Chapter Four: The Unspeakable Desire Chapter Five: Beating the Bounds Chapter Six: Words Way Chapter Seven: Biding the Time Chapter Eight: Mythic Frameworks Chapter Nine: To Know or Not to Know, That Is the Question Chapter Ten: The Heart of the Forest Notes
About the Author
After obtaining a degree in biochemistry cum laude from Natal University, David was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. He took a three-year degree in theology at Oxford University and then followed that up with a degree from Rhodesia University in educational studies which was also awarded with distinction. David eventually was awarded a doctorate at Sydney University, also in education. He has been a headmaster of schools for 21 years. He started writing books after retirement.
Dedication
To all those with whom I have worked, and particularly to my wife, Ann-Louis, who has given me the time, and the facilities, with which to write.
Copyright Information ©
David H. M. Wright (2021)
The right of David H. M. Wright to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528992428 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528992435 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
People will tell you that science and philosophy and theology have nowadays come together. So they have in a sense…they have come together at a funeral. The funeral is that of Dead Certainty.
– S Leacock
Chapter One

Search for the Heart
To be human includes having a mind that does not take the world literarily. As the world is discovered to be. Everybody appears to have a mind that continually asks questions. Doubtless infuriatingly, the world never gives complete answers to that form of question. Environments seem always to have impenetrable depths. Desires for richer understanding may flourish. Quests to fathom the real nature of objects and events often burgeon. You may try to discover the distinguishing characteristics of whatever has been wrapped around objects and events. All your efforts tend, however, to end in failure.
Maybe it is the personal freedom that individuals have that triggers inclinations to examine, test, unravel whatever puzzles. Humans are distinguished by their abilities not only to accept the prevailing conditions but to try to change them. Humans do not solely exist. They live to try to alter the ways in which events happen. The modes by which they function. Humans are often differentiated by the ways they have searched for centres of whatever has functioned. Gum forests are not the sole objects examined. Everything problematical needs investigation. Humans seek for the patterns by which given objects have functioned. They search for profounder understandings, firmer control, of whatever has been operating. It is often believed that if they could only harness the more profound elements of their respective environments, they would be able to lead much happier lives.
Chemists, encountering unknown substances, will often seek to break them down. Solids are ground more finely in mortars. Attempts are made to discover the solvents in which the ground material may be dissolved. Breaking substances down into their basic ingredients is a major objective. Harsh Bunsen Burner flames are often employed in assisting in the analysis.
It used to be thought that attempting to dismantle would finally leave you with substances unable to be broken down further. You would find yourself left with the atoms and molecules of unknown substances. Atoms used to be thought of as parts of matter that could not be further divided. More recent advances have indicated that more divisions are possible. Atoms can be split. In being split, vast amounts of energy are released. Accelerating atoms in cyclotrons, arranging for them to bombard into other atoms, has enabled scientists to demonstrate that further subdivisions are possible. Divisions may occur beyond the level of atoms.
Scientists have been able to investigate beyond what were once thought to be indivisible frontiers. They have been able to demonstrate that the properties of atoms are chiefly determined by the ways in which electron clouds have orbited nuclei. Atoms were formerly thought to consist solely of positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons and uncharged neutrons. Such particles have subsequently been demonstrated as being open to further subdivisions. At the same time, explanations have been sought why positively charged protons, grouped together in the nuclei of atoms, have not caused major disruptions. Why, in spite of such forces of opposition, atoms have remained relatively stable?
Non-material aspects of existence have also proved fascinating. They have affected the way in which humans have behaved. Questions have needed to be asked. What makes whole, finished, properly functioning human beings? Analysis in scientific laboratories is of little help. Questions are not empirical. Are beyond the powers of science to answer. Science is only able to deal with empirical problems.
These are not idle, not indecisive, questions. They need to be addressed. Humans are affected by the answers given. The answers stretch far beyond what physical investigations have offered. Questions never appear to be neatly, definitively answerable. They are beyond what schools, what centres of higher learning, teach. Answers ought to be searched for. Struggled after. Success is never an end that falls comfortably into people’s laps. Success needs to be earned. Material determiners never provide answers that are entirely satisfactory. Gum forests have existed for long stretches of time. Many of them are employed metaphysically. The question is whether their centres can ever be located? Can ever be attained?
History has demonstrated how there have been, from time to time, individuals who have despaired of contemporary worlds. Who have struggled to introduce what they have seen to be necessary changes. They may occasionally have been able to bring about forms of restructuring. Whether what they have introduced has been a genuine improvement is difficult to say.
That the world steadily changes seems to be one of its characteristics. Less answerable is whether the presumed necessary changes have indicated that a perfect world has in fact arrived. The world may alternatively better be described as a work in progress. A world still striving to be satisfactorily completed. It could be argued that the world, at any moment, is more or less as it ought to be? Mutability is a necessary property. That is a very different argument from saying that the inherent mutability of the world is evidence that it has yet to reach its perfect condition.
Feelings of disillusionment with contemporary conditions have also often arisen. No guarantees are available to indicate that the changes that have taken place have produced an improved world. Marx is a revolutionary who tried to hasten the birth pangs of what he believed was a new world order. You find yourself very hard pressed to admit, however, that the changes that he promoted, indeed introduced the type of improvements that were necessary.
Success is often assessed by whether individuals have felt happier under changed conditions. Happiness is difficult absolutely to pin down. You may go in search of it. You frequently discover that happiness tends to flee. It is not a state of feeling contented, bubbling with positive, delightful, emotions. It is more likely a state of mind. A manner of looking on all that has passed. Happiness comes and goes like the wind blows. You would never be conscious what was meant by being happy if you did not know what was manifest by being sad.
One of life’s huge advantages is its dualistic nature. The way in which persons can feel both full and empty. In endeavouring to find the centres of gum forests you have first to enter them. You rapidly find that Les Murray’s observation was correct. The exact centres of gum forests can never be determined. You find that we have been invited not to arrive at precise destinations but to participate in endless journeying. If life did not have its dualistic frames, we would have no competence to choose. Dualism gives us abilities to differentiate between highs and lows. It enables us to know what is meant either by attaining, or having failed to attain, the goal of effective living.
Choosing is a major human responsibility. Choices are affected by the freedom with which we have been endowed. Environments present us with ranges of possible responses. Consequences often emanate from the options we have selected. Our freedom does not indicate that we have been given a freedom to choose as we desire. That option is available to everybody. True freedom responds to the duty of doing what needs to be done at the time that it needs to be done. Real freedom is displayed by doing what is publicly acceptable. Not from doing what you desired. That alternative is licentiousness.
Real freedom is made of sterner stuff. It is manifest by being able to do what needs to be done at the time that it needs to be