image: robert a dickinson

I found myself in a situation with several sets of headphones and microphones that had been thrown carelessly in a box. I recognised one as being more important than the others so thought that I would rescue this one from the techno-spaghetti it had become enmeshed in.

As I started to unravel the ball I realised that they were pretty well knotted but also that it was impossible to extricate one from the mess and not deal with them all as a result of focusing upon the one. The process of unravelling things is, for me, often cathartic and elevates my thinking. I realised that human development is like this.

We become tangled and knotted and often need to unravel ourselves to see exactly where and what we are or have become. Crucially you cannot focus upon one area you see needs improvement without upgrading other allied or connected areas too. We do not proceed in isolation but travel as a multi vectored thing.

There is little perceived glamour in development, it is often seen as a hard slog and the rewards are intangible, you don’t get a certificate or an award. The reward comes from the frequency that you operate upon and the things that you attract to yourself as a result of that. A person who knows where they are going and what they are doing has a completely different effect upon their environment and their environment responds differently to them.

It is a challenge in our age of celebrity and instant reward, we have created a very hedonistic ethos, to focus upon what has true gravitas in human life, indeed in human being. Often there are distractions and paths that we follow that result in our becoming knotted and trussed up in a scenario that is only partly of our making. Unless you are the Supreme Intelligence and the creator of all that you survey you can only consider your life in the context of a circumstantial happening. You found yourself here and now you have to, if you are so inclined, try and make sense and meaning of it all.

Alexander the Great is reported to have encountered a great knot in Persia, the Gordian Knot, that symbolised the intricacies of development and the human situation. When presented with this knot he was told by the sages that were its custodians that whoever had the wit and intelligence to unravel the knot was rightfully the ruler of the world. Alexander was no slouch, he assessed the situation and decided to hack through the knot with his sword.

The bemused Persians were obliged to concede that Alexander had unravelled the knot and was, by proxy, the rightful ruler of the world. Which he went on to become, establishing an empire and a sphere of influence with remarkable and uprecedented rapidity given the age in which he lived.

There is, of course, an alternative take on the famous story of the Gordian Knot. Alexander rose like a firework, burned brightly, achieved phenomenal feats and redefined the world as he knew it. In thirty two short years he made an indelible mark on the human story that still rings thousands of years and scores of generations later. The fact, however, is that Alexander was dead by thirty two, a young man who had the benefits of personal tutelage from Aristotle. What might he have become had he not been so impetuous?

The Gordian Knot was cut through but its links severed. This could almost be seen as an allegorical destruction of the Persian Empire and the advances that it had made. Here is the difficulty: each succeeding generation or age abandons what has been created before it. In fact it usually destroys it. History is written by the victors not the vanquished and human history is so often about conflict. By destroying that which has preceded us we abandon that which has been of value. As individuals we must assess our own lives in the context of their arising and within the circumstances that they found themselves party to.

Without this it is not possible to understand oneself. Without understanding of oneself it is impossible to live a life that is anything other than a series of reactions and opportunistic thrustings. The ideal state is to have a clearly defined understanding of oneself and a strategy that underpins our self elected objectives in life.

Even the fact of the Alexander story being based around knotted rope is significant. Rope is one of those things that has been pivotal in human development. Along with the wheel, the printing press and the Internet it has brought about significant and massive change in how we collectively do what we do. Humans are builders and the development of rope allowed us to mesh things together, create pulleys, tie things down and do things that generally improved the situation and broadened the horizon stretched before us.

Alexander hacked through rope and solved a problem in the very short term. His response to the problem was immediate and impetuous and he was dead at an age we would consider premature for one of such obvious talent. Had he been able to reign himself in and taken a different approach we can only speculate as to the flowering of human genius that Alexander may have been the epicentre of. Speculation is all it will ever be and we may never know but it is accurate to say that Alexander was an enlightened man who held the world in his thrall. All the lands of the earth at that time had heard of the brilliant young general who was undefeatable and were in awe of him, partly through fear but no doubt also of curiosity.

Who can imagine what such a force, as Alexander was, at large in the world may have represented to the people of that age? We look to the court of Elizabeth Tudor and the gathering of individuals whom she encouraged and by her patronage achieved greatness and can only marvel at what Alexander may have become.

Then we are faced with ourselves. Don’t measure yourself against Alexander or Elizabeth, both privileged children of enlightened parents and given access to the very finest resources that their respective ages had to offer. Do marvel at what you may become, your opportunity in life is no lesser, do be in awe of what works you may commit to the pantheon of human achievement. Be they great or small is of no relevance, who’s measuring? Strive to be the best you can, be better than before and you will walk upon a path whose paviors are etched with the greatness of what human beings can achieve.