OK, recent blogs have been far too serious! Here's an A to Z of living which a friend once gave me, and which I've treasured ever since…
Act silly
Believe in magic
Create adventures
Daydream every chance you get
Enjoy the little things
Find time for fun
Go to unexplored places
Imagine…
Join clubs
Keep it simple
Love all creatures
Make time for friends
Nap when you can
Open your mind to new ideas
Play when you feel like it
Question the answers
Run with the wind
Sing favourite songs
Take days off
Uncover your talents
Venture out
Walk on the wild side
Xpect the best
Yield to the moment
Z-zzzzz peacefully at night
Monday, August 22, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
STORIES
It's so refreshing to hear different stories. At a Mexican party last week, women rather unsettlingly painted moustaches on their faces, and men wore black wigs. But every person had their tale. Some told of chaotic journeys through Thailand; of marriages gone wrong; marriages gone right… if you listened carefully, you could experience business successes and failures, romances, childhoods, lives in trouble, lives turned good… even the musicians had their story, and shared happily.
It sets life in perspective, to hear so many stories. You're only one of many, sitting like penguins on a beach, a congregated mass of odd creatures, sharing space for a while, making a lot of fuss, but all looking out at the same long sea.
It sets life in perspective, to hear so many stories. You're only one of many, sitting like penguins on a beach, a congregated mass of odd creatures, sharing space for a while, making a lot of fuss, but all looking out at the same long sea.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
IN A QUIET GARDEN
There is a garden in Liguria, with a stone buddha, and roses, and lavender. From its edge, you can see up and down the valley, to the olive groves carved out of its harsh hillside, and the reed-strewn river that bubbles along the valley floor.
I remember this garden when it was young. Borders had been sketched out, and young plants laid along their edges. Now I am back, those plant are maturing, some of them as tall as me. The great oak at the pool's edge gets bigger and prouder every year, and casts its protective shade across the grass.
The world seems so far away at times like this. Driving up the windy mountain roads, away from the busty, tanned artificiality of Nice, trouble and business give way to something more balanced, more serene. Away from anger, from stress, from confusion… away from all that, it's easier to see that it's just life in all its colour. I've often been asked, 'Where's your anger?' But, you know what? Hopefully, with enough love, there isn't room for it. If you keep to the truth in your own heart, no amount of noise and fuss changes that.
So, like this beautiful hillside garden, I'll spread more branches, grow more colour, and try to welcome much-loved guests whenever they return.
I remember this garden when it was young. Borders had been sketched out, and young plants laid along their edges. Now I am back, those plant are maturing, some of them as tall as me. The great oak at the pool's edge gets bigger and prouder every year, and casts its protective shade across the grass.
The world seems so far away at times like this. Driving up the windy mountain roads, away from the busty, tanned artificiality of Nice, trouble and business give way to something more balanced, more serene. Away from anger, from stress, from confusion… away from all that, it's easier to see that it's just life in all its colour. I've often been asked, 'Where's your anger?' But, you know what? Hopefully, with enough love, there isn't room for it. If you keep to the truth in your own heart, no amount of noise and fuss changes that.
So, like this beautiful hillside garden, I'll spread more branches, grow more colour, and try to welcome much-loved guests whenever they return.
SIMPLICITY AND INTEGRITY
We love the idea of simplicity. In an age of informational complexity, we like to imagine everything tidy and under control. When our emotions become complicated, we like the idea of an easygoing peace.
But we are born with complex minds. We can accept lots of different and conflicting things into our consciousness. When these things fight each other, we become anxious. To achieve simplicity, we need to learn to become a peacemaker between competing ideas. Our love of adventure needs to make friends with our love of security. Our passion for newness needs to make friends with our enjoyment of familiarity.
If we can't accept part of ourselves, if we cannot 'integrate' it into our self-concept, then we literally lack integrity. We will try to deny any weakness, sometimes projecting it onto others; sometimes we'll even create enemies, risking upset to our our own lives in the process - and all because we can't accept ourselves completely. To make our lives simple, I'm sure we need to learn to accept our own imperfections, and to stop blaming others for our shortfalls. Blame and its associated feelings are often just ways of avoiding our own development. Then, once we have accepted our own responsibility, we can begin to make our internal world more tidy and peaceful.
Something magical happens when we relax towards others, and take responsibility for ourselves. We spend less time assuming wrong things, and more time seeing people and things as they are. We become empty, peaceful, and accepting.
But we are born with complex minds. We can accept lots of different and conflicting things into our consciousness. When these things fight each other, we become anxious. To achieve simplicity, we need to learn to become a peacemaker between competing ideas. Our love of adventure needs to make friends with our love of security. Our passion for newness needs to make friends with our enjoyment of familiarity.
If we can't accept part of ourselves, if we cannot 'integrate' it into our self-concept, then we literally lack integrity. We will try to deny any weakness, sometimes projecting it onto others; sometimes we'll even create enemies, risking upset to our our own lives in the process - and all because we can't accept ourselves completely. To make our lives simple, I'm sure we need to learn to accept our own imperfections, and to stop blaming others for our shortfalls. Blame and its associated feelings are often just ways of avoiding our own development. Then, once we have accepted our own responsibility, we can begin to make our internal world more tidy and peaceful.
Something magical happens when we relax towards others, and take responsibility for ourselves. We spend less time assuming wrong things, and more time seeing people and things as they are. We become empty, peaceful, and accepting.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
CLAUDIO'S CARE
The wheel of a watermill turned gently above the river. Claudio made us feel like royalty with extra desserts and free aperitifs. Family means so much in Italy, and sometimes three or four generations were at the same table, shouting lost words between the deaf old and the inattentive young. The village children played in the dark square on bicycles.
Some houses are crumbling, but there is a basic beauty to even that. The cracks are coloured and shaded as though in a master's old oil painting. Italy seems to know that nothing has value without the extra touch of a person's hand; that meaning lies in the kind space beyond contract, where friends give because they want to give, and for no other reason.
On a table nearby, a man fussed over his woman, touched her unnecessarily often. She turned away from him. But on her face was the smile of a satisfied lover, of a woman in control.
Some houses are crumbling, but there is a basic beauty to even that. The cracks are coloured and shaded as though in a master's old oil painting. Italy seems to know that nothing has value without the extra touch of a person's hand; that meaning lies in the kind space beyond contract, where friends give because they want to give, and for no other reason.
On a table nearby, a man fussed over his woman, touched her unnecessarily often. She turned away from him. But on her face was the smile of a satisfied lover, of a woman in control.
Monday, August 8, 2011
CORNFLAKES, CLUBS AND CAPPUCINOS
People don't really get old; they just get better at disguising their youth. Last week, staying with fellow psychology students in Bath, there was no difference between generations. Everybody was equally capable of collapsing onto pavements in a heap in the early hours. Young and old alike acquired and messed up relationships in equal measure. I wasn't drinking, but there's something infectious about group behaviour, lunacy and music that carries you along. There was hard work in amongst the parties. We were all conducting cognitive experiments. Some were investigating aspects of memory. My favourite was a study investigating how we respond to what we hear. They played you various sounds - a baby crying, the sound of thunder or of breaking glass - and you let it remind you of a memory. Apparently, the 'people' noises - the sound of a gasp, or a scream - evoke much stronger memories than 'object' noises. That makes sense.
Being among new people is a chance to behave more freely. Faced with a competition in the bar, my competitive streak got the better of me. You had to pick up an empty cornflakes packet with your mouth, without hands or knees touching the ground. If you succeeded, they tore a bit off the packet, so it became harder and harder to reach down. Not to be defeated, I found myself 'in' to the end, legs apart and tongue brushing the floor to pick up the last remaining flat piece of card from the cereal packet. My bum muscles took all week to recover, but it was worth it: the prize was chocolate, which I could then use to keep subjects smiling in my experiment room through the week.
It had been so long since I'd 'let my hair down' in a club. But it was glorious and mad. Clubs at busy times are similar to evangelical religious meetings… shouting hard-to-understand noises with hands in the air… later, acting the 'mother hen', I loved making sure everyone was back safe by a very sensible 3am!!
Mixed in with the madness was some seriously interesting psychology. It was mind-boggling to deliver presentations and keep working with so little sleep, but everyone seemed to handle their exhaustion. And all through the week, a supply of cappucinos to stop everyone falling asleep over all the statistics. I will never forget everyone's fun, loving, listening and sharing attitude. I drove back up the A303 with a happy glow, and some special new friends to care about and compare notes with.
Being among new people is a chance to behave more freely. Faced with a competition in the bar, my competitive streak got the better of me. You had to pick up an empty cornflakes packet with your mouth, without hands or knees touching the ground. If you succeeded, they tore a bit off the packet, so it became harder and harder to reach down. Not to be defeated, I found myself 'in' to the end, legs apart and tongue brushing the floor to pick up the last remaining flat piece of card from the cereal packet. My bum muscles took all week to recover, but it was worth it: the prize was chocolate, which I could then use to keep subjects smiling in my experiment room through the week.
It had been so long since I'd 'let my hair down' in a club. But it was glorious and mad. Clubs at busy times are similar to evangelical religious meetings… shouting hard-to-understand noises with hands in the air… later, acting the 'mother hen', I loved making sure everyone was back safe by a very sensible 3am!!
Mixed in with the madness was some seriously interesting psychology. It was mind-boggling to deliver presentations and keep working with so little sleep, but everyone seemed to handle their exhaustion. And all through the week, a supply of cappucinos to stop everyone falling asleep over all the statistics. I will never forget everyone's fun, loving, listening and sharing attitude. I drove back up the A303 with a happy glow, and some special new friends to care about and compare notes with.
Monday, July 25, 2011
BEAUTY AND IDENTITY
On my birthday, I sat in the café across the road from the passport office. I needed a new passport. So, on the day I was born, I had to confirm and justify who I was.
You have to get your application countersigned by someone 'of standing in the community' who has known you for at least two years. I had been lost for anyone to ask, until my mother suggested a friend living near the house I was born in. When she came to the bit confirming how long she had known me, she looked at me.
"When were you born?" she asked, and then wrote '46 years', as the length of our friendship, on the form.
I loved the idea of having a friendship lasting since I first arrived in the open air only 100 yards from where the form was being signed. She wrote that she had known me since I had existed. Can a friendship start at birth? I decided it can, because a friendship only needs one active partner. If the other cannot yet speak or walk, then they can still receive friendship, and can return it in time.
You have to get your application countersigned by someone 'of standing in the community' who has known you for at least two years. I had been lost for anyone to ask, until my mother suggested a friend living near the house I was born in. When she came to the bit confirming how long she had known me, she looked at me.
"When were you born?" she asked, and then wrote '46 years', as the length of our friendship, on the form.
I loved the idea of having a friendship lasting since I first arrived in the open air only 100 yards from where the form was being signed. She wrote that she had known me since I had existed. Can a friendship start at birth? I decided it can, because a friendship only needs one active partner. If the other cannot yet speak or walk, then they can still receive friendship, and can return it in time.
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