Finding a new approach

There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do, not without using up an awful lot of electricity. This logistical problem is one that I've been wrestling with for years. It's not even something the supermarkets can help with. 'Spend £100 in-store and claim an extra fours hours of natural daylight on your chosen day - valid until 12/12/14'.  Nice thought though. I wish.

I've been trying to catch-up on some reading you see. There's all the stuff on the kindle that I've downloaded, complete books as well as samples, fact and fiction. Then there are the art magazines from the UK, which we had redirected as we're members of various organisations and political mags which are my thing really. Then there are the French newspapers, books, magazines. I go into overdrive.  I start reading with pencil in hand, poised to mark-up all the new links, titles, names etc., that I inevitably come across and just have to check out. There's something about being insatiably curious that is extremely irritating.

I'm in the middle of reading a supplement called The Shifting Power Dynamic. Sounds very dry and worthy but it's fascinating, revealing and unsettling.  Contributions come from politicians, diplomats, academics, various think tanks, international agencies. So a broad knowledge/experience base from which emerge a series of perspectives about politics and the world stage.  The supplement is divided  into sub-groups such as International Relations, Global Diplomacy, Control and Influence. There's also a book list at the back. I'm only on page 10 of this wretched supplement and already there are crosses, underlinings, exclamation marks on every page of things to follow up. Hopeless!

The introduction is by Paddy Ashdown who discusses the age of global interdependence we have embarked on. He's given a TED Talk on the subject. Haven't got round to watching it yet, but it will no doubt be an indepth version of the article I've just finished. 

One of the key themes throughout the supplement is that government as we know it is no longer the solution; that it remains resolutely stuck in the past; that Ministers and Civil Servants are far more interested in preserving their budgets, defending their payrolls and protecting the territorial integrity of their individual departments.  Networking is deemed a threat and not viewed as an opportunity. Networking  of course matters. 

Ashdown cites as an example for failure in Afghanistan, the international community's failure to network.  As a result there was no coordinated plan, just the inability of nations to work together  and their refusal to speak and act with a single purpose.  His real attention grabbing point is that in this day and age where '. . .everything is connected to everything
 . . .we increasingly share a destiny with our enemy.'

The concept of living together is not a new concept. But as Ashdown explains it, whereas in the past it was more a question of morality, for our times it is more a question of our survival.