I took the train from North Wales to Midland region of England last Monday to visit family.
The weather was sunny with vivid blue skies sitting looking out of the window of the train I thought how green and lush the Shropshire landscape is. Shropshire is a fairly sparsely populated county with the major town of Shrewsbury in the centre of Shropshire. Over towards south west are the Clee hills bordering Wales.
Not long afterwards I was soon into the industrialised conurbation of Wolverhampton and Birmingham and had to change trains at Birmingham’s New Street station for Bromsgrove Worcestershire.
I went out walking most days in the local Worcestershire countryside and you couldn’t help but notice all the wild daffodils and small roadside flowers growing on the verges and open green spaces. The birds chirping away looking for a mate. “Ha there I am over here come and say hello”!
Spring officially starts on 20 March 2022 this is classed as Astronomical Spring. This is down to the seasons with the earths annual rotation around the sun. With the planet titled at 23.5 degrees the earth aligns vertically with plane of the sun. Which means the sun moves up from the Southern Hemisphere across the equator which is then called the equinox. Meaning the length of daylight equals the length of night.
Time is a manmade computation because astronomical movements of the earths rotation around the sun and the moons rotation around the earth aren’t precisely commutated to fit in with time. Hence different month periods and the equation of time. This is due to the ecliptic nature of earths trajectory around the sun.
Why did man want to strictly adhere to a time system and not be happy living with astronomical movement of the celestial bodies which the ancients and agriculture farmers were quite happy to live with as a measure of time for eons? Time is relative as Einstein explained in his theories of special and general relativity. SpaceTime which relates to mass and the speed of light. The greater the mass the slower the relative movement of time . like everything in the universe it’s all based upon perspective .
In navigation time is critical for celestial navigation because time can be converted to degrees and minutes of Longitude and back to time again. This time is taken from the datum reference location of Greenwich London England and is called Greenwich Mean Time
GMT or the modern term Universal Time Coordinated or UTC. The Sun or more accurately the planet rotates on its axis every 24 hours. Earth spins around at 900 nautical miles per hour from west to east or anti-clockwise if you were looking down from the North Pole. Greenwich which is a meridian longitudinal line from north to South Pole is at O degrees longitude from there we have 24 Time zones around the planet and each time zone is 15 degrees wide.
Time coordination didn’t really happen until the invention of the steam locomotion and the railways. Before that towns and cities times frames were more aligned with astronomical time. Which is to be honest is a more natural biological method and more aligned with nature and our own biological circadian clocks.
However that said in the modern world were time is such an all encompassing factor of life everything has to be completely synchronised time wise., it wasn’t until 1844 that towns in Britain adopted the Greenwich Meantime system even then there was resistance to adopting it for some railway station and many towns.
Now time is synchronised with the frequency of atomic clocks. In reality there is no such thing as time it’s a manmade fabrication. For me it another way to control us were we have to live within defined schedules. Work, train flights ferries and so forth. Human income or wages are based upon specific time factors such as 37.5 working week. I can’t help thinking is this really the way to enjoy our time and existence on planet Earth? The older I get the more I realise this is weird way of existence. It’s as if we are working for existence sake? Which in a way I suppose we all are?
Okay each day When I look at myself in the mirror and any old photographs of myself I equate time passing to ageing. When we die we always for some reason relate it to an age or of a life time span.
But ageing is biological process to do with our cells. What is biological ageing? Biological ageing results from the accumulation of damage within cells, leading to a loss of function and, ultimately, cell death. The underlying mechanisms of ageing are also risk factors in the onset of frailty, disability and long-term diseases.
Now I’m going to argue that life can be extended through the reduction of biological ageing. But there’s a caveat here we have to live a different existence radically different. Because I believe modern western lifestyle is toxic to our health and well-being. I explain why later.
Let’s look at why we biologically age. Average UK life expectancy at birth has doubled since 1841 and is now 79.2 years (males) and 82.0 (females). An increasing number of older people is resulting in a growing prevalence of long-term (chronic) age-related conditions and disabilities towards the end of life.
For example, more than 25% of people over 60 currently report having two or more chronic conditions (multi-morbidity).Moreover, the number of UK cases of dementia is projected to increase from 850,000 to 2 million by 2051, often co-occurring with other conditions. Such conditions put pressure on health and social services and can have additional economic consequences such as people leaving employment to provide unpaid care to others.
In 2017, the annual cost of unpaid care provided by 16-65 year olds in England was estimated to be £2.9 billion, due to social security benefits claimed by carers and foregone income tax. This figure is projected to rise as an additional one million people over 65 may require unpaid care by 2035.5 Over the same period, the number of carers available is expected to fall.
For me this is an indictment on modern western life styles something is radically wrong! Ageing is not a genetically predetermined set of events and many biological and environmental factors can influence the rate at which it occurs. These factors also influence the onset of age-related diseases such as some neuro- degenerative disorders and cancer, as well as symptoms such as frailty, ageing could potentially lead to interventions that delay or prevent the onset of age-related chronic illness, increase the quality of life of older individuals and reduce dependencies and economic pressure on health services and care providers.
I’m a great believer we ourselves control our own health and well being. Both physically and mentally. Life depends on a number of basic biological processes. For example, cells need to be able to break down food to produce energy, and to use that energy to make new cellular components (such as DNA and proteins) and to breakdown waste products.
Collectively these processes are known as the cellular metabolism. They also need to be able to produce new cells to develop and regenerate tissues and organs, a process that involves cell division and DNA replication. Research suggests that these fundamental processes may become less efficient with age, causing a range of secondary consequences. These interact with the primary factors and influence the ageing process.
Primary factors linked to ageing include: Accumulation of damage in DNA (mutations) – mutations can result from exposure to harmful chemicals or radiation in the environment, or from decline in the body’s DNA repair mechanisms.
Mutations over the lifespan can lead to loss of gene and cell function. incomplete replication of chromosomes. ageing is associated with changes to epigenetic regulation across the genome. mitochondria are responsible for cell energy production. Mutations accumulate in mitochondrial DNA with age and can spread when mitochondria replicate. This can lead to inefficient energy production and cell damage.
How do we reduce the ageing process or slow it down and live much longer healthier lives?
I believe that modern western lifestyles are absolutely toxic for our happiness and well-being. Why? I put it down to our value systems.
Modern western man or woman live a disconnected existence from the natural world. Our religion of consumerism has no spiritual values. I’m not talking about religion here I’m talking about a spiritual disconnect from the natural world that surround us.
This spiritual connection is about the worships of all life, human and non human. How can we live harmonious lives with nature and other humans with the present western values of consumerism, poor diet and stressful living. The constant daily bombardment of advertisements of stuff we don’t need or want that creates in us a sense of deep dissatisfaction. “I can show you how to make millions of pounds” “ I can show you how to become thinner” I can show how you to have more muscles” I can show you… on and on it goes every single moment of the day.
Consumerism makes us become addicted to stuff be it cloths, shoes, cars, houses and the latest fashion craze. Which eventually causes us to become addicted to harmful substances simply because we can’t cope with the toxic lifestyle that we’ve designed to live.
Why is that? because modern western lifestyles make us want more and more stuff keeps us constantly dissatisfied with life and our existence. This eventually makes us ill through stress and depression and a sense of hopelessness. What is life all about?
Without a deep spiritual connection to keep us aligned and rooted with the bigger picture of the glory of our god given lives and the wonder of life itself. Which I believe is unique in the cosmos. Life in a sense had no purpose other than to create more life. This is why the spiritual connection is so important for us so we can live in a conscious way to saviour every single passing moment of our precious lives.
I feel we need to always consider the miracle nature of life, and in that way, it will help us to live in harmony with nature and our fellow humans. This spiritual connection will allow us to live a more peaceful existence and extend the longevity of our lives.
Back to time again, time for me is change and I saw this quite dramatically recently. I hadn’t been to Bromsgrove for over 20 years when I went there earlier last year I find it fairly difficult to orientate myself to what was originally a very small market town that had morphed out of all recognition. It had grown and changed radically from when I had lived there. More houses, shops and commercial buildings. It’s as if the population had exploded , due to the executive nature of its location with a number of motorways close by.
Over population is a real problem on the planet earth. Several years ago I went out to work in India which is very over populated country. I always felt it was on the verge of complete chaos! When I came back to the U.K. I thought what a difference to living in India.
With its constant noise pollution and in many cases abject poverty. I simply put it down to number of humans in such a small living space. Too many humans puts stress on everything, transport systems, resources houses and ourselves. Evidently many of Chinese cities are similar and especially Hong Kong. Over population doesn’t make for harmonious living at all.
When you look at that video you can see we humans are out of control as species and over population is major environmental disaster on a small planet. What’s the answer? Firstly to reduce population size. I have feeling this is something that’s currently happening as women become more educated and emancipated.
I also feel due to climatic change nature will do this for us. The earths biosphere is a self righting feed back system if something is out of equilibrium it will self right remember we had many mass extinctions before through climatic disturbance I see this anthropogenic epoch climatic disturbance just the same. We have U.K. politicians talking about trying to start shale gas fracking again to try and make up for the loss off Russian gas and oil. From every calamity there’s an opportunity for us to change. But we have politicians with little or no vision. They want to go on as usual with same old energy model. But the biosphere is forcing us to change we have no choice in this.