The Deep Thoughts of Jim Emerton

By Jim Emerton

Champion pigeon racer, lover of wild creatures and wild places, MENSA member, philosopher -in retirement Jim Emerton now devotes his time and energies to sharing his experiences, his observations and his expertise with others who share his interests and concerns. This is a collection of Jim's more philosophical writings as originally published in MENSA publications, including the members' periodical Cognito. They are in general his attempts, as he puts it, to 'verbalise the unknowable'. "I have had a great life...I have travelled a lot, run a business, been a salesman, I was a record-breaking shot and until I was 30 I had never been beaten at arm wrestling. Over the years I have developed my own personal belief system fusing science and art in philosophy."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mereo Books
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781861518026

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Emerton

Jim Emerton has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Published by Mereo

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Cover Design – Ray Lipscombe

ISBN: 978-1-86151-802-6

This book is a collection of articles, observations, letters, stories, comments and verse previously published in the various Mensa publications for members, including Mensa Magazine, Cognito, Arcana, THINK!, Parnassus, Green Scene, Lyriq etc. They are reprinted with permission and have been adapted where necessary to suit the context of a book. Other short pieces were written separately for this volume…

CONTENTS

Introduction

Jim Emerton interviewed by Brian Page

Man, Humanity and the Meaning of Life

Personality and the Mind

People, Places and Pigeons

The Natural World

About the Author

Jim Emerton is a lifelong lover of the countryside and wild creatures who has been a prominent member of the pigeon racing community for more than 40 years and is now internationally known as a writer and commentator on the sport. A deep thinker and lover of philosophy, his visits to 52 countries have given him much food for thought about the universe and the human condition. He became a member of Mensa in his thirties, subsequently joining no fewer than 15 of its special-interest groups. He now spends much of his time writing for Mensa publications and the pigeon racing press.

INTRODUCTION

Writing on nature, and the nature of my writing

The whole purpose of my writing is to project what I see as the truth of my own experiences, combined with knowledge gleaned from cultural studies of the arts and sciences. Writing is a way of life, and my personal way of giving something back to the birds and other subjects I have devoted my life to. It is rewarding when people find it interesting or enlightening, although some of the ideas are poetic or philosophical.

I like to reflect my special feelings and insights into the mind of man and what we really know and don’t know about the world around us. Educated on the great writers like Blake, Kafka, Dostoevsky and Sartre, I aspire to having perhaps a fraction of their collective wisdom and penetrating insight.

Membership of Mensa has opened up a sea of writing possibilities for me in specialist newsletters and magazines, and I now indulge myself regularly in this activity. My thanks to all who take an interest in my publications and my highly-personalised writings.

Poet, Philosopher and Pigeon Racing Expert

Jim Emerton interviewed by Brian Page

Reproduced with permission from Mensa Magazine, November 2016

It was, says Jim Emerton, perhaps the most magical moment of his life. He was on a houseboat on Lake Dal in Kashmir, the air crisp and pure and the sky a startling blue against the white mountaintops in the distance.

I was smoking from a hookah pipe that was filled with hashish and opium and it was the most amazing moment. I got to a place I don’t think I will ever reach again.

Sitting opposite Jim, now a man well into middle age and dressed in a short-sleeved checked shirt and chinos and wearing a trilby hat, the juxtaposition is startling. He smiles at my surprise. We were all young once, he says and laughs.

For long-time Mensa member Jim, travel – and, you suspect, experiencing new ideas and concepts along the way – has always been an important part of life. He met his wife Jean in 1978 just before he was to go on a trek to the Himalayas.

Jean and I fell in love, but I was still determined to go, and I did. Jean was very upset but like the movie star I said ‘I’ll be back’. I was away for four months. When I came home I had long hair, a beard, and looked like a wild man, a hippy, which I suppose I was. I got a haircut and got cleaned up and went to see her and we’ve been together ever since.

Not that the travel ended. Jean joined him on his tours – in all, he says, he has been to 52 countries and islands.

It was while travelling that Jim began to develop a philosophical thought process of his own. I was in the Pokhara Valley in Nepal and was at the top of a mountain and it was a wonderful experience, there was a complete loss of ego because you are so small against all that nature, and there was an enhanced feeling of consciousness, it was really very meaningful. Jim had come to realise, he says, that he had been brainwashed by the education system. I spent three years at Askham Bryan College and then three years studying at Kew and then did teacher training and then the Open University. All that time as a student listening to what other people are telling you, you are brainwashed into accepting the ideas of others. Now I have developed my own personal belief system fusing science and art in philosophy.

And it is through Mensa, which he joined in 1987, that he expresses much of that belief process – from his desk at home. I do not like crowds, too many stimuli in a group and I feel threatened by the group dynamic. I am quite introverted in some ways, so I involve myself in Mensa through writing and the SIGS. My involvement with Mensa is here with my computer, where I can contribute my ideas and thoughts to among others Cognito, Lyriq, Science and Mystics, Scientists and Autistic Spectrum and Bipolar. I have always been proud of being a member of Mensa and it has allowed to me to explore my ideas and my poetry through the SIGs.

He has also taken his writing to another level and has published a series of books, including My Life in Pieces, Poems and Paragraphs, a collection, as the title implies, of his poetry and musings on the world. There will be three books in a similar style out by the end of this year, he says. It’s an astonishingly prolific output. And then there is also to be what he calls his magnum opus, a new book on pigeon racing. Jim is universally recognised among the pigeon racing fraternity for his writing on the sport and as a leading breeder and competitor. His latest work will be a huge book for which he has conducted interviews with lots of leading figures in the pigeon world, including the manager of the Queen’s loft.

I hope it will be my masterpiece. My ambition is to be the best writer on pigeon racing in the world. It is something that I have a drive to do, to prove something, it gets me moving these mornings now I am older. He pauses and smiles thoughtfully. It’s been an invigorating hour, full of anecdotes and tales and musings from his fascinating life.

When I reflect on it I think I have had a great life really, he says. I have travelled a lot, run a business, been a salesman. I was a record-breaking shooter and until I was 30 I had never been beaten at arm wrestling. Then there was the poetry, and now the books. And then there is Jean, such a wonderful woman, I have been so lucky – although I am not always good at showing it – as we’ve been together for 38 years now. Yes, it’s been a good life. And a life that’s not over yet. There’s more to come, I suspect, and hope, from Jim Emerton, writer, poet, philosopher and pigeon racing expert.

MAN, HUMANITY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

THE VISIONARY PERSONALITY

Luminaries, seers, prophets and imagineers are all visionaries of one kind or another. The essence is their focus on future possibilities, and it can be accompanied by precognition or visions in the form of a presentiment. I have known them all on a personal level, or in the company of others on my world travels. It would appear to spring from the brain/mind synthesis – the self in juxtaposition with the external environment at large, and with cosmic influences. We know little in this complex mystery, yet science, religion and philosophy attempt