Am currently in hard slog mode. Hence the dearth of posts here for the past week or so.
Global financial woes aside, my own financial situation has been nothing short of a revelation in terms of how well one can get by on almost "nothing" really! I bought the first groceries in almost two weeks today and we were down to an empty fridge pretty much, so was more or less forced to by very hungry teenagers.
Me? I could live on damper (an old fashioned type of bread made of flour, salt and water or milk and baked under hot coals on an open fire), til the cows come home if I have too - well, sans the charcoal anyway!
I found some work as a cleaner in a motel this week. It's a start. It is hard, hot, thirsty and very physical heavy labour. The rest of the girls in the team all seem to do the job reasonably cheerfully and efficiently. Some have been at it for over 20 years! Which I find simply extraordinary. It's routine work and rhythmic but the standard is way beyond average in this particular motel I have to say. This place is CLEAN and how? I am pretty impressed really as I've stayed in a goodly share of motels and hotels over the course of my life and some have been less than enthusiastic in keeping them the way I'd prefer. This one is a real gem among the rocks.
This morning, I had to get down on my hands and knees in the bathrooms and literally scrub the tiled floors with a scrubbing brush and heavy duty disinfectant. The level of cleanliness detail in this motel is second to none and I'm actually quite pleased to be working in a place that has so much pride and puts so much determination to be "The Best" into their work.
Whilst the job isn't going to help my financial situation in a big way in the foreseeable future, if the other irons I have in other various fires don't brand, then I guess I will have to be a motel cleaner for as long as it takes until I find the work I am MEANT to do. My knees may object to that statement in time, but they'll just have to put up and shut up until something "nice-to-knees" comes along.
Hard work doesn't necessarily phase me, I can work hard; what does phase me is paying bills and right now, any pay is good pay if it keeps us sheltered and fed.
Life is tougher for others right now and I'm doing okay. The trick to any time in life when the slog seems to be just all uphill is to turn around and enjoy the view. We can concentrate on the hard yakka, one grunting step up the mountain at a time, or we can stop, turn, savour the sunset on a spreading vista and smile knowing that the journey is going to be totally worth it in the end.
Cleaning motels is not my final occupation. Where cleaning motels leads me may yet be my final occupation... or not! It all depends on the turn of the wheel: the turn on the head of a pin.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
A quiver full of words looking for a bow.
It's down to the wire financially here. But it's okay *she mutters gritting her teeth and smiling*.
Work and the art of finding it is proving to be The Challenge of 2008! I want to work, I aspire to work. I can work really, really hard when necessary. I don't mind being busy at all, in fact, I'm better organised and efficient if I'm busy.
I finally know what my inner bean WANTS to do and I'm determined to try and satisfy her wishes. She wants to write! I don't mean big long novels or books. She wants to write articles about stuff, about ideas and what she's learned along life's meandering school corridors. Michelle's inner bean knows instinctively and emphatically that she wants to write existential, informative and thought-provoking articles such as the ones you read on the last page of magazines and in the opinion columns of tabloid newspapers.
Paying the bills on a dream though is less than practical. In my case, it's currently extremely impractical, what with my 16 year old daughters Presentation Ball within the fortnight and various bills screaming for my fiscal attention.
It's at times like these the twin prongs of Faith and Purpose have to merge into coherent Action. I'm printing off resumes left, right and centre and dropping in on businesses with envelopes stuffed with Letters of Introduction and a plea for work of any description. I'm even offering to volunteer if they can't afford me right now! Counter-intuitive I know, but I figure if they SEE me working, they'll figure out I'm worth paying for the privilege.
I'm hitching a ride on absolute and total trust right now that this current phase - which is so not really me at heart - of "Putting Myself Out There", will achieve the financial stability I need to keep a roof over my kids heads.
Life does not come to you when you're down and out and looking for a helping hand. You have to look at Life and ask "Okay, so what do I do with this little bit of excrement you've just handed me?". One can either choose to sit down and sulk or one can stride with purpose along the path, looking for a convenient rubbish bin in which to dump said excrement and move on. I am choosing the latter.
If anyone, who needs a writer or a typist, is reading this, then please ping me! My quiver is full of words and is available for hire, you might be the bow that helps me shoot the target.
Work and the art of finding it is proving to be The Challenge of 2008! I want to work, I aspire to work. I can work really, really hard when necessary. I don't mind being busy at all, in fact, I'm better organised and efficient if I'm busy.
I finally know what my inner bean WANTS to do and I'm determined to try and satisfy her wishes. She wants to write! I don't mean big long novels or books. She wants to write articles about stuff, about ideas and what she's learned along life's meandering school corridors. Michelle's inner bean knows instinctively and emphatically that she wants to write existential, informative and thought-provoking articles such as the ones you read on the last page of magazines and in the opinion columns of tabloid newspapers.
Paying the bills on a dream though is less than practical. In my case, it's currently extremely impractical, what with my 16 year old daughters Presentation Ball within the fortnight and various bills screaming for my fiscal attention.
It's at times like these the twin prongs of Faith and Purpose have to merge into coherent Action. I'm printing off resumes left, right and centre and dropping in on businesses with envelopes stuffed with Letters of Introduction and a plea for work of any description. I'm even offering to volunteer if they can't afford me right now! Counter-intuitive I know, but I figure if they SEE me working, they'll figure out I'm worth paying for the privilege.
I'm hitching a ride on absolute and total trust right now that this current phase - which is so not really me at heart - of "Putting Myself Out There", will achieve the financial stability I need to keep a roof over my kids heads.
Life does not come to you when you're down and out and looking for a helping hand. You have to look at Life and ask "Okay, so what do I do with this little bit of excrement you've just handed me?". One can either choose to sit down and sulk or one can stride with purpose along the path, looking for a convenient rubbish bin in which to dump said excrement and move on. I am choosing the latter.
If anyone, who needs a writer or a typist, is reading this, then please ping me! My quiver is full of words and is available for hire, you might be the bow that helps me shoot the target.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Dick be a dragon too
The fabulous Dick Richards who first inspired me through his work with "Genius", has re-entered the blogsophere with a new blog entitled "Riding on Dragons".
Over the past couple of years or so, the dragon theme has been a particularly strong one in my on-going journey of growth. My dear friend "Martin" is identified by his lovely wife as "Drache", which means 'dragon' in german. I actually call him "bat" for other reasons, but the concept behind him being 'dragon'ish' is quite true. He presents possibilities and opens up the imagination to explore alternative pathways to potential answers.
Dick wrote some time ago in his old blog "Come gather round" on his ideas about this new version of Dragon Lore.
I, myself, wrote about riding allegorical dragons through knowing people of great talent, wonder and possibility in the early days of this blog. :)
Dragons ARE real you know! Just like Santa Claus is real to those that wish to believe. If you drown out your cynicism and grown-up mature realism for just one moment and allow yourself to believe in the magic of dragons, you'll be amazed at where you'll end up! Dragons are sent to inspire, teach, exhort, train, lead from behind and engage your imagination in the absolute wonders of The Possible.
When everything appears impossible, close your eyes, open your heart, say a prayer of thanks for the breath in your body and let imagination come to you. If you see the Dragon that brings it... Say thanks for that too! :)
Over the past couple of years or so, the dragon theme has been a particularly strong one in my on-going journey of growth. My dear friend "Martin" is identified by his lovely wife as "Drache", which means 'dragon' in german. I actually call him "bat" for other reasons, but the concept behind him being 'dragon'ish' is quite true. He presents possibilities and opens up the imagination to explore alternative pathways to potential answers.
Dick wrote some time ago in his old blog "Come gather round" on his ideas about this new version of Dragon Lore.
I, myself, wrote about riding allegorical dragons through knowing people of great talent, wonder and possibility in the early days of this blog. :)
Dragons ARE real you know! Just like Santa Claus is real to those that wish to believe. If you drown out your cynicism and grown-up mature realism for just one moment and allow yourself to believe in the magic of dragons, you'll be amazed at where you'll end up! Dragons are sent to inspire, teach, exhort, train, lead from behind and engage your imagination in the absolute wonders of The Possible.
When everything appears impossible, close your eyes, open your heart, say a prayer of thanks for the breath in your body and let imagination come to you. If you see the Dragon that brings it... Say thanks for that too! :)
Sunday, October 12, 2008
"Deep down, everyone's a Ferengi"
Last weeks events...well... the last few weeks I guess...regarding the large financial "losses" sustained by various countries are finally beginning to bite into the collective psyche of ordinary people.
Apparently, it's not just big business corporations going berserk over really bad financial management, it's about you and me and how we saved, managed, used and borrowed money this past few years! It's how we invested, where we chose to invest, on what terms we were given loans and how well we paid those loans back, that we're finally being confronted with.
A very subtle finger is being pointed at ordinary people. Somehow this is all our fault!
Patronising platitudes from government leaders won't alleviate the scary possibility that we got too greedy this past decade.
I don't think we'll go under as such like the years of the Great Depression, but I do think a very conservative financial mind-set will settle into the hearts and minds of the next few generations about how and when and where and with whom the paper we trade value for is managed.
Printing extra money is so unbelievably stupid! That's the sort of reactive thinking and actions kids do in Monopoly games gone wrong!
I am currently very money orientated myself. Since separating from my marriage, financial freedom is becoming more and more an important value and maybe even a quiet passion within. I want and desire to be financially sustainable both as a woman on my own and as a mum to my two teenagers. I want very much to be able to share financial resources with those people and causes I value and I aim to achieve the goal of financial autonomy with that vision in mind. It becomes a high-wire act of balancing both the ideal of philanthropy and acquisitive greed. I need to be careful to not value money for its own sake but to value what it will do in the lives of those that come after me, spiritually, emotionally, physically and intellectually. Money isn't so much the goal as the pressure it takes off in being able to do good in the world!
Most of us in the North like our "stuff". We seem to strongly identify with our place in the world in terms of the physical ephemera we surround ourselves with. Clothes, housing, food, tools, art and technology all become items that support our version of ourselves more than anything else. We aspire to living "simpler" but it's not working for us right now because we don't really know HOW to live simply anymore. Things, stuff, clutter, toys and artifacts are our spiritual dimension now. We can no less do without them than our ancient ancestors could imagine being without their gods! They're so intrinsically entwined into our sense of place and identity as individuals that to take it all away suddenly and unequivocally will perhaps send many of us mad with the confusion over who we are!
Perhaps this current global lesson in financial silliness will show the next few generations the real value of trading value for value. Perhaps new generations of wise fiscal managers will begin to understand that the fruit trees and tomato plants grown in back yards around the world, the produce of which is traded with neighbours in kind for reciprocated goods and services is worth more than greenback ink on strange paper. Maybe the value we identify in our stuff will transfer into how we can best use that stuff to make life better for everyone in our neighbourhood.
Life isn't money! Money isn't life! The Primary Rule of Acquisition is always: Live simply so that others might simply live.
Of course, the Ferengi would dispute that I suppose!
Apparently, it's not just big business corporations going berserk over really bad financial management, it's about you and me and how we saved, managed, used and borrowed money this past few years! It's how we invested, where we chose to invest, on what terms we were given loans and how well we paid those loans back, that we're finally being confronted with.
A very subtle finger is being pointed at ordinary people. Somehow this is all our fault!
Patronising platitudes from government leaders won't alleviate the scary possibility that we got too greedy this past decade.
I don't think we'll go under as such like the years of the Great Depression, but I do think a very conservative financial mind-set will settle into the hearts and minds of the next few generations about how and when and where and with whom the paper we trade value for is managed.
Printing extra money is so unbelievably stupid! That's the sort of reactive thinking and actions kids do in Monopoly games gone wrong!
I am currently very money orientated myself. Since separating from my marriage, financial freedom is becoming more and more an important value and maybe even a quiet passion within. I want and desire to be financially sustainable both as a woman on my own and as a mum to my two teenagers. I want very much to be able to share financial resources with those people and causes I value and I aim to achieve the goal of financial autonomy with that vision in mind. It becomes a high-wire act of balancing both the ideal of philanthropy and acquisitive greed. I need to be careful to not value money for its own sake but to value what it will do in the lives of those that come after me, spiritually, emotionally, physically and intellectually. Money isn't so much the goal as the pressure it takes off in being able to do good in the world!
Most of us in the North like our "stuff". We seem to strongly identify with our place in the world in terms of the physical ephemera we surround ourselves with. Clothes, housing, food, tools, art and technology all become items that support our version of ourselves more than anything else. We aspire to living "simpler" but it's not working for us right now because we don't really know HOW to live simply anymore. Things, stuff, clutter, toys and artifacts are our spiritual dimension now. We can no less do without them than our ancient ancestors could imagine being without their gods! They're so intrinsically entwined into our sense of place and identity as individuals that to take it all away suddenly and unequivocally will perhaps send many of us mad with the confusion over who we are!
Perhaps this current global lesson in financial silliness will show the next few generations the real value of trading value for value. Perhaps new generations of wise fiscal managers will begin to understand that the fruit trees and tomato plants grown in back yards around the world, the produce of which is traded with neighbours in kind for reciprocated goods and services is worth more than greenback ink on strange paper. Maybe the value we identify in our stuff will transfer into how we can best use that stuff to make life better for everyone in our neighbourhood.
Life isn't money! Money isn't life! The Primary Rule of Acquisition is always: Live simply so that others might simply live.
Of course, the Ferengi would dispute that I suppose!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
that ache to belong to the task
So many write about it. So many teach and inspire others to seek and find it. So many want it; yearning for the pull of it; breathing in and out with the hope of achieving it.
Dave calls it "The Sweet Spot"
Steve calls it "Living consciously"
Dick calls it "Genius"
Jonathan would probably call it "The creative life"
Most of us want it. Some of us only aspire to a dim feeling it might be possible. Some of us are driven to achieve it at all costs. Some of us are philosophical about it. Some of us are deeply spiritual about it. Some of us actually find it.
It can't be bought, sold, hired, or even given away. This "It" is intangible, elusive, mutable and ephemeral. It can be sought but never clutched. Once its found it is as if the sky opens to new wonders you could never have envisaged and you find yourself in territory so alien as to be morphed yourself into someone your nearest and dearest barely recognise. The people who find their personal "It" become...well... they glow! They literally beam with joy and spirit. Their bodies burst with health, vitality, Life, joi d'vivre. They have a presence and a innate sense of personal power that captivates and charms. They're wonderful to be around but they don't...they never...milk that for their own purposes at all, they're completely self Less in their expression because they're fulfilled at the basest core of their being and they don't need any ego trips to keep topping it up.
"It" is THE THING YOU were uniquely wired for and/or put on this earth to DO.
Some call it "Purpose".
In me, the pursuit of it causes all manner of deep and hidden urgency. I get moments when I feel the pull but cannot remotely even put my finger on what it is that is pulling me. That is so frustrating. I WANT to do what I'm meant to do. I want to engage fully with whatever it is that is my passion, my inner drive, my fulfillment as a human being. I want to be of service through the manifestation of my particular soup of talents, skills and expertise. I want to engage in the task where time stops and that thing becomes play and fun and its sort of 'easy' (but not unchallenging) and where it is simply regenerative to the soul...not only my own soul but everyone else's too.
I have no freaking idea what my "It" is! I want to know. I want to find out. I want to find it, embrace it, let it rest on me like the downy bodies of butterflies. I want to experience what it's like to be ENGAGED with my life's work. Work that uplifts and inspires and mends and builds. I want to be fully conversant with the world in fruitful and blissful reciprocation of what I have to offer and what I get back in return for what I offer. I want to fully develop that which makes me of service to others.
Looking for my personal "It" is akin to sitting in a very dark theatre, trying to watch a movie shot in the dark! It's like watching Apocalypse Now with the sound turned off and the lighting turned way down to almost black. You glimpse things but nothing makes sense. You know its an important story but you can't make head or tail of who or how things are meshing together. Finding ones "It" is inconceivably annoying sometimes.
There are all these steps you can do I suppose to try and nail down the Thing you were meant to do. Boxes you can tick, spiritual exercises you can try, personal development tapes you can listen to. Labels you can name your innate gift. There is all that stuff you can do to attempt to find it.
For the most part, people just like the process of trying to find it I guess. That pull, that sense of being MORE than just a conglomerate of atoms and cells with limbs is a strong one. We'd like to think of ourselves as being gods of our niche where no one else can match us for brilliance and omnipotence. We are all suitably narcissistic enough to want that kind of rush to the head.
Perhaps I grow too cynical these days. Perhaps I've had enough of reading PD stuff that serves no other purpose than to make me FEEL like I'm doing okay in trying to be "better" as a person. Trying isn't doing. Doing is forgetting about trying and is merely practical application using what is currently at hand. Trying is frantically looking for anything other than whats at hand. Trying is merely an excuse to not do. Doing is mostly scary. Trying makes you look courageous but its usually just a bit of pimped up ride really.
My passion is?
I have no freaking idea!
My skills I could probably list but I don't seriously believe in any of them you know. I doubt my skills. They don't make me really happy as such, they're just stuff that I learned how to do over the years and I rarely if ever feel I can do them well.
My talents are what?
I have no real clear indication other than those that fall under the skills list. I could perhaps list them but I don't actually believe they're that useful to myself or anyone. They just happen to be a very, very few things I know I can do slightly above average to my peers. Even then, I doubt them seriously as being markers to finding my "Thing I'm Meant to Do". I may even perhaps have talents I don't even recognise or realise - hardly useful those then!
So - this palpably, stupidly annoying feeling of being pulled towards the Thing...the something I want/need/can do tugs at my spiritual shirt tails and I turn but it's gone and as much as I look for it... it continues to elude me. It's like a call coming from no discernible direction - a kind of shadowy echo of something calling me from the soupy mists in a land called "Purpose".
What the hell am I here to do? I ache to belong to the job that is right for me. And I suspect if I ever find it, it will be a job that takes me outside of my ego-centric self and puts me into alien territory where I become someone else other than the person I think I should be. Someone better, someone bolder, someone kinder and more loving than I am right now. I have something to do in the world but the synergy between what it is and what I am is not yet simpatico.
Damned frustrating that!
Dave calls it "The Sweet Spot"
Steve calls it "Living consciously"
Dick calls it "Genius"
Jonathan would probably call it "The creative life"
Most of us want it. Some of us only aspire to a dim feeling it might be possible. Some of us are driven to achieve it at all costs. Some of us are philosophical about it. Some of us are deeply spiritual about it. Some of us actually find it.
It can't be bought, sold, hired, or even given away. This "It" is intangible, elusive, mutable and ephemeral. It can be sought but never clutched. Once its found it is as if the sky opens to new wonders you could never have envisaged and you find yourself in territory so alien as to be morphed yourself into someone your nearest and dearest barely recognise. The people who find their personal "It" become...well... they glow! They literally beam with joy and spirit. Their bodies burst with health, vitality, Life, joi d'vivre. They have a presence and a innate sense of personal power that captivates and charms. They're wonderful to be around but they don't...they never...milk that for their own purposes at all, they're completely self Less in their expression because they're fulfilled at the basest core of their being and they don't need any ego trips to keep topping it up.
"It" is THE THING YOU were uniquely wired for and/or put on this earth to DO.
Some call it "Purpose".
In me, the pursuit of it causes all manner of deep and hidden urgency. I get moments when I feel the pull but cannot remotely even put my finger on what it is that is pulling me. That is so frustrating. I WANT to do what I'm meant to do. I want to engage fully with whatever it is that is my passion, my inner drive, my fulfillment as a human being. I want to be of service through the manifestation of my particular soup of talents, skills and expertise. I want to engage in the task where time stops and that thing becomes play and fun and its sort of 'easy' (but not unchallenging) and where it is simply regenerative to the soul...not only my own soul but everyone else's too.
I have no freaking idea what my "It" is! I want to know. I want to find out. I want to find it, embrace it, let it rest on me like the downy bodies of butterflies. I want to experience what it's like to be ENGAGED with my life's work. Work that uplifts and inspires and mends and builds. I want to be fully conversant with the world in fruitful and blissful reciprocation of what I have to offer and what I get back in return for what I offer. I want to fully develop that which makes me of service to others.
Looking for my personal "It" is akin to sitting in a very dark theatre, trying to watch a movie shot in the dark! It's like watching Apocalypse Now with the sound turned off and the lighting turned way down to almost black. You glimpse things but nothing makes sense. You know its an important story but you can't make head or tail of who or how things are meshing together. Finding ones "It" is inconceivably annoying sometimes.
There are all these steps you can do I suppose to try and nail down the Thing you were meant to do. Boxes you can tick, spiritual exercises you can try, personal development tapes you can listen to. Labels you can name your innate gift. There is all that stuff you can do to attempt to find it.
For the most part, people just like the process of trying to find it I guess. That pull, that sense of being MORE than just a conglomerate of atoms and cells with limbs is a strong one. We'd like to think of ourselves as being gods of our niche where no one else can match us for brilliance and omnipotence. We are all suitably narcissistic enough to want that kind of rush to the head.
Perhaps I grow too cynical these days. Perhaps I've had enough of reading PD stuff that serves no other purpose than to make me FEEL like I'm doing okay in trying to be "better" as a person. Trying isn't doing. Doing is forgetting about trying and is merely practical application using what is currently at hand. Trying is frantically looking for anything other than whats at hand. Trying is merely an excuse to not do. Doing is mostly scary. Trying makes you look courageous but its usually just a bit of pimped up ride really.
My passion is?
I have no freaking idea!
My skills I could probably list but I don't seriously believe in any of them you know. I doubt my skills. They don't make me really happy as such, they're just stuff that I learned how to do over the years and I rarely if ever feel I can do them well.
My talents are what?
I have no real clear indication other than those that fall under the skills list. I could perhaps list them but I don't actually believe they're that useful to myself or anyone. They just happen to be a very, very few things I know I can do slightly above average to my peers. Even then, I doubt them seriously as being markers to finding my "Thing I'm Meant to Do". I may even perhaps have talents I don't even recognise or realise - hardly useful those then!
So - this palpably, stupidly annoying feeling of being pulled towards the Thing...the something I want/need/can do tugs at my spiritual shirt tails and I turn but it's gone and as much as I look for it... it continues to elude me. It's like a call coming from no discernible direction - a kind of shadowy echo of something calling me from the soupy mists in a land called "Purpose".
What the hell am I here to do? I ache to belong to the job that is right for me. And I suspect if I ever find it, it will be a job that takes me outside of my ego-centric self and puts me into alien territory where I become someone else other than the person I think I should be. Someone better, someone bolder, someone kinder and more loving than I am right now. I have something to do in the world but the synergy between what it is and what I am is not yet simpatico.
Damned frustrating that!
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Blog post 350
I'm not really sure if this is a milestone in the blogging world anymore. People writing 350 blog posts over the course of a couple of years isn't probably that much of a big deal these days. I'm sure it was great cause for celebration in the earlier days of blogging, when it was still such a new and interesting form of communication.
But what does one say at Blog Post 350?
Oh I'm sure I could say quite a bunch about the mundane vicissitudes of my current life! :) But I'll spare you the whinge *wink*
In fact, today, I shall spare everyone the meandering musings of my muddled mind! Well... I sort of will...
Thus, Blog Post 350 will pass into oblivion as being nothing more than a route marker on the journey; a simple signpost for how far we've come on this particular road of words and ideas.
My only beef is that the distance to the destination is obscured! And some of you will complain that its not the destination that matters but the road one travels to get there. *smile* Yeah but what is the point of travelling if you don't have 'Somewhere' to get to? Even going back to the beginning can be 'Somewhere'!
I don't know where I'm going... I only know that I am. Life is like being lost at a cross-roads of infinite choices every single day. I'd like to know my destination but it's annoyingly ill-defined and uncertain. Perhaps I'm just meant to enjoy the scenery on the way, but even the Nullarbor Plains become boring once the initial Wow factor has dissipated - along with most of the trees!
The destination I'm looking for is not my Nirvana or Heaven on Earth - it's merely 'Somewhere' where I can put up my feet for a bit, enjoy the local cuisine and customs for awhile before moving on to the next stage of my journey and lessons. I'm tired and weary and in need of a sense of Place - even if its just for a few nights, metaphorically speaking.
Blog Post 350. I got this far...I'll keep travelling to see how much further I can go.
But what does one say at Blog Post 350?
Oh I'm sure I could say quite a bunch about the mundane vicissitudes of my current life! :) But I'll spare you the whinge *wink*
In fact, today, I shall spare everyone the meandering musings of my muddled mind! Well... I sort of will...
Thus, Blog Post 350 will pass into oblivion as being nothing more than a route marker on the journey; a simple signpost for how far we've come on this particular road of words and ideas.
My only beef is that the distance to the destination is obscured! And some of you will complain that its not the destination that matters but the road one travels to get there. *smile* Yeah but what is the point of travelling if you don't have 'Somewhere' to get to? Even going back to the beginning can be 'Somewhere'!
I don't know where I'm going... I only know that I am. Life is like being lost at a cross-roads of infinite choices every single day. I'd like to know my destination but it's annoyingly ill-defined and uncertain. Perhaps I'm just meant to enjoy the scenery on the way, but even the Nullarbor Plains become boring once the initial Wow factor has dissipated - along with most of the trees!
The destination I'm looking for is not my Nirvana or Heaven on Earth - it's merely 'Somewhere' where I can put up my feet for a bit, enjoy the local cuisine and customs for awhile before moving on to the next stage of my journey and lessons. I'm tired and weary and in need of a sense of Place - even if its just for a few nights, metaphorically speaking.
Blog Post 350. I got this far...I'll keep travelling to see how much further I can go.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
I recovered
My wee rant on Friday saw me blubbering like a fool as per usual over another mini-crisis in my life.
I've thought about my job and I'll muddle through as best as I can, but am hoping to negotiate some modifications with the boss tomorrow if possible. I'm philosophical about it now.
I had some lovely gestures made towards me this weekend - not related to the said blog rant - which validated and uplifted me very much. I'm grateful to these people and then some :)
Daylight Saving started here in Victoria today. We turned our clocks forward. Right now my body is telling me its "only" 2200 hours but the clock here is telling me its actually 2300 hours, meaning of course that I'd best get some sleep before trying to make my body get up effectively an hour earlier than its used to! We live in constant hope of success on that one! Not! hahaha
Also went walking down by the river today in the glorious sunshine :) That is always good for reviving the soul and putting a smile on my face. They may not be overly energetic walks as such and they're probably not strictly exercise in the aerobic sense of the word, but the meditative calm they bring my mind, body and soul is just about as effective. I DO feel much more grounded and centred when I've taken my head for a walk as close to nature as possible. The reason I say "my head" is because for some reason this past few months, I've had a natural resistance to taking the ipod along. Occasionally I do but its actually rare. I seem to currently prefer the conversations inside my head. I muse, meditate, pray and imagine and in many ways its proved to be a healing process for me. I heartily recommend you try it. Simple walking, in nature, alone, with just your thoughts and a Higher Power (or Imaginary Best Friend *wink*).
Sunburnt now of course! *sigh* Even at this early stage of spring and I been made sun-kissed pink on my arms and chest already! One must never underestimate the Aussie sunshine it seems!
I suspect this week will be a turning point yet again in this crazy, topsy-turvy year I am living. At least I can't complain this year has been dull anyway! *wry smile*
I've thought about my job and I'll muddle through as best as I can, but am hoping to negotiate some modifications with the boss tomorrow if possible. I'm philosophical about it now.
I had some lovely gestures made towards me this weekend - not related to the said blog rant - which validated and uplifted me very much. I'm grateful to these people and then some :)
Daylight Saving started here in Victoria today. We turned our clocks forward. Right now my body is telling me its "only" 2200 hours but the clock here is telling me its actually 2300 hours, meaning of course that I'd best get some sleep before trying to make my body get up effectively an hour earlier than its used to! We live in constant hope of success on that one! Not! hahaha
Also went walking down by the river today in the glorious sunshine :) That is always good for reviving the soul and putting a smile on my face. They may not be overly energetic walks as such and they're probably not strictly exercise in the aerobic sense of the word, but the meditative calm they bring my mind, body and soul is just about as effective. I DO feel much more grounded and centred when I've taken my head for a walk as close to nature as possible. The reason I say "my head" is because for some reason this past few months, I've had a natural resistance to taking the ipod along. Occasionally I do but its actually rare. I seem to currently prefer the conversations inside my head. I muse, meditate, pray and imagine and in many ways its proved to be a healing process for me. I heartily recommend you try it. Simple walking, in nature, alone, with just your thoughts and a Higher Power (or Imaginary Best Friend *wink*).
Sunburnt now of course! *sigh* Even at this early stage of spring and I been made sun-kissed pink on my arms and chest already! One must never underestimate the Aussie sunshine it seems!
I suspect this week will be a turning point yet again in this crazy, topsy-turvy year I am living. At least I can't complain this year has been dull anyway! *wry smile*
Friday, October 03, 2008
I seem to be on some kind of roller coaster...
and I'd dearly like to get off now please!
My job is on the line I think. I have to consider if I want to continue it this weekend which really puts the pressure on, given I have a uni assignment to complete before Monday and a bunch of Centrelink forms to complete as well this weekend.
You'd think that working in a cafe would be a snap yeah? Easy peasy right? ANYone could do that sort of "menial" work! etc etc etc
Apparently not me!
I've worked in the food industry a long time, but mostly in one particular style of food industry, basic take-away. Having been self-employed in partnership with my once-husband for 18 years, you would think I'd have some skills yeah?
I feel about as bright as a waning moon though.
I am DUMB when it comes to working in a cafe! I freak out under the pressure of having people to serve like NOW...I hate having people wait in the queue banked up six deep at the counter all wanting to be served. I get my timings on heating their food all wrong and the chips are cold and the coffee is shite! I get the money wrong; I make stupid mistakes constantly because I simply cannot retain what happened five minutes ago in my brain!
Oh...Ask me some trivial thing like who starred in the movie "Some Like it Hot" and I'll tell you that...but to tell you if a customer wanted a cafe latte or a muggaccino ordered five minutes ago and I have consult my notebook!
Dumb as dog shit I tell you *sigh*
The cafe isn't really "that" busy right now either. I've been warned that it will be freakingly busy by Christmas. I'm supposed to be going through training for a Hospitality Certificate III where some clever person "observes" me working and takes notes etc periodically. I got to pieces if someone is looking over my shoulder. The dumber I feel, the dumber I behave.
It's possibly one of the more stupid things I've said in this blog - and there'd be plenty of those - but right now? I feel as if I am being "punished". But, then, I've always felt guilty for everything that happens anyway, even if it wasn't my fault!
Still... to "fail" at being a coffee waitress seems just so.... I don't know? It just sucks and I don't know what I'm good for other than washing clothes and driving my kids to their social lives!
*sniff*
Sorry for the rant... I just feel like an utter failure tonight. I guess I'll feel better in the morning.
My job is on the line I think. I have to consider if I want to continue it this weekend which really puts the pressure on, given I have a uni assignment to complete before Monday and a bunch of Centrelink forms to complete as well this weekend.
You'd think that working in a cafe would be a snap yeah? Easy peasy right? ANYone could do that sort of "menial" work! etc etc etc
Apparently not me!
I've worked in the food industry a long time, but mostly in one particular style of food industry, basic take-away. Having been self-employed in partnership with my once-husband for 18 years, you would think I'd have some skills yeah?
I feel about as bright as a waning moon though.
I am DUMB when it comes to working in a cafe! I freak out under the pressure of having people to serve like NOW...I hate having people wait in the queue banked up six deep at the counter all wanting to be served. I get my timings on heating their food all wrong and the chips are cold and the coffee is shite! I get the money wrong; I make stupid mistakes constantly because I simply cannot retain what happened five minutes ago in my brain!
Oh...Ask me some trivial thing like who starred in the movie "Some Like it Hot" and I'll tell you that...but to tell you if a customer wanted a cafe latte or a muggaccino ordered five minutes ago and I have consult my notebook!
Dumb as dog shit I tell you *sigh*
The cafe isn't really "that" busy right now either. I've been warned that it will be freakingly busy by Christmas. I'm supposed to be going through training for a Hospitality Certificate III where some clever person "observes" me working and takes notes etc periodically. I got to pieces if someone is looking over my shoulder. The dumber I feel, the dumber I behave.
It's possibly one of the more stupid things I've said in this blog - and there'd be plenty of those - but right now? I feel as if I am being "punished". But, then, I've always felt guilty for everything that happens anyway, even if it wasn't my fault!
Still... to "fail" at being a coffee waitress seems just so.... I don't know? It just sucks and I don't know what I'm good for other than washing clothes and driving my kids to their social lives!
*sniff*
Sorry for the rant... I just feel like an utter failure tonight. I guess I'll feel better in the morning.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
a journey of heart, mind and soul
I took a drive today. A deep sense of frustration and a rather large dose of cabin fever - that and the fact that I've been a bit blue over my current financial conundrums etc etc - I decided on an intuitive whim that a trip outside my usual comfort zone might be just what the doctor would order.
I can't afford to go really far, so I opted for the mountain range, practically in my "back yard" so to speak, about 65kms away.
I decided to go visit The Balconies or "The Jaws of Death" on Reeds Lookout for once. I don't remember having done this trip since perhaps very young with my parents and I certainly haven't done a trip to the Grampians heart since the big bushfires of January 2006!
Nature is persistent and resilient and she'll bounce back. I guess there is a lesson for all of us in that too - that no matter the adversity, one must always send new shoots forward into the future, on the ashes of the past.
At Reeds' Lookout, I was rapt to be amongst several different nationalities of people all speaking in their various languages (sadly, I am no Henry Higgins so cannot tell you from which parts of the world they came from). It really felt like being "overseas" in many ways and I felt a surge of positive joy in my heart just being there and watching them climb over the "safety" rails to go stand in the mouth of the "Jaws" themselves! Mind you! After awhile of watching young foreign men and women play mountain goats on rather sheer rock ramparts, I had to leave, feeling a little overly motherly in my concern for strangers, whom I could not communicate with effectively to warn of any dangers! Still, the walk, the sunshine - the sky was clearing by now - the mishappen and alien environs of the mountain and regenerating scrub-land, all did me the world of good.
I then drove the winding roads through the Wonderland Tableland and stopped at Rosea Carpark intent on finding my way to Dellys Dell. This walk down into the fern-hearted depths of the mountain was a delight, if a rather strange journey into a very changed fact of my history. It was 20 years ago, approximately, that I first committed to marrying my once-husband in this very place. I spent some time down here today contemplating that past 20 years. A tiny little native finch accompanied me for a short while, darting from fern frond to fern frond, oblivious and unconcerned by my presence in his home. I let go of that past and accepted that I am finally responsible for what happens to me - on my own - without fear or recoil from a future where the possibilities are limitless. I miss the companionship of being "with" someone, but I need to give up needing it so much and get on with being ME without the co-dependent tendencies. The finch was suitably nonplussed by my few short tears and my determination to re-emerge from the Dell "re-born" so to speak. He/She probably thought I was taking myself just a tad too seriously perhaps! :)
I then travelled the further 10km of winding road down into the township of Halls Gap. Once a tiny little backwater and hidden gem of a place for bush-walkers, camping enthusiasts and visitors to come feed kangaroos and buy a simple ice-cream - it is now a resort/camping mecca for an abundance of national and international travellers! We nearly lost the entire town back in 2006, only a few of the locals stayed to help fight back the wrath of the fires that came, literally, within metres of destroying the place. But, that near tragedy has not daunted this little town! There are resort cabins, accomodations and all manner of "developments" taking place. The place is NUTS in holiday season and it will be a damn shame, but I can totally see the powers-that-be having to remove some lovely forest to make more room for carparking! Joni Mitchell's "Yellow Taxi" springs to mind. Progress be damned in this instance I think - but how the mighty $ rules! *sigh*
I went to the Stony Creek shops to get a cup of tea and met a bloke called "Micheal", a cheeky affable old local who delighted me and engaged me with conversation and much laughter. We only got as far as first names but I already found him lovable and charming and maybe I will meet with him again in future travels to take those photo's. I told him about my trip to Dellys Dell, without giving much away about the spiritual and emotional implications of that short journey, but he said almost immediately "You spoke to the fairies didn't you?". I could only agree, laughing at the knowledge of being "known" so well so quickly!
My money woes and my worries about tomorrow won't go away overnight because of this journey. My sense of isolation and tension in being "trapped" by my own need for personal freedom will possibly return. But, right here and right now, I travelled "abroad" and it feels good to have experienced something new.
My soul is calm.
I can't afford to go really far, so I opted for the mountain range, practically in my "back yard" so to speak, about 65kms away.
I decided to go visit The Balconies or "The Jaws of Death" on Reeds Lookout for once. I don't remember having done this trip since perhaps very young with my parents and I certainly haven't done a trip to the Grampians heart since the big bushfires of January 2006!
Nature is persistent and resilient and she'll bounce back. I guess there is a lesson for all of us in that too - that no matter the adversity, one must always send new shoots forward into the future, on the ashes of the past.
At Reeds' Lookout, I was rapt to be amongst several different nationalities of people all speaking in their various languages (sadly, I am no Henry Higgins so cannot tell you from which parts of the world they came from). It really felt like being "overseas" in many ways and I felt a surge of positive joy in my heart just being there and watching them climb over the "safety" rails to go stand in the mouth of the "Jaws" themselves! Mind you! After awhile of watching young foreign men and women play mountain goats on rather sheer rock ramparts, I had to leave, feeling a little overly motherly in my concern for strangers, whom I could not communicate with effectively to warn of any dangers! Still, the walk, the sunshine - the sky was clearing by now - the mishappen and alien environs of the mountain and regenerating scrub-land, all did me the world of good.
I then drove the winding roads through the Wonderland Tableland and stopped at Rosea Carpark intent on finding my way to Dellys Dell. This walk down into the fern-hearted depths of the mountain was a delight, if a rather strange journey into a very changed fact of my history. It was 20 years ago, approximately, that I first committed to marrying my once-husband in this very place. I spent some time down here today contemplating that past 20 years. A tiny little native finch accompanied me for a short while, darting from fern frond to fern frond, oblivious and unconcerned by my presence in his home. I let go of that past and accepted that I am finally responsible for what happens to me - on my own - without fear or recoil from a future where the possibilities are limitless. I miss the companionship of being "with" someone, but I need to give up needing it so much and get on with being ME without the co-dependent tendencies. The finch was suitably nonplussed by my few short tears and my determination to re-emerge from the Dell "re-born" so to speak. He/She probably thought I was taking myself just a tad too seriously perhaps! :)
I then travelled the further 10km of winding road down into the township of Halls Gap. Once a tiny little backwater and hidden gem of a place for bush-walkers, camping enthusiasts and visitors to come feed kangaroos and buy a simple ice-cream - it is now a resort/camping mecca for an abundance of national and international travellers! We nearly lost the entire town back in 2006, only a few of the locals stayed to help fight back the wrath of the fires that came, literally, within metres of destroying the place. But, that near tragedy has not daunted this little town! There are resort cabins, accomodations and all manner of "developments" taking place. The place is NUTS in holiday season and it will be a damn shame, but I can totally see the powers-that-be having to remove some lovely forest to make more room for carparking! Joni Mitchell's "Yellow Taxi" springs to mind. Progress be damned in this instance I think - but how the mighty $ rules! *sigh*
I went to the Stony Creek shops to get a cup of tea and met a bloke called "Micheal", a cheeky affable old local who delighted me and engaged me with conversation and much laughter. We only got as far as first names but I already found him lovable and charming and maybe I will meet with him again in future travels to take those photo's. I told him about my trip to Dellys Dell, without giving much away about the spiritual and emotional implications of that short journey, but he said almost immediately "You spoke to the fairies didn't you?". I could only agree, laughing at the knowledge of being "known" so well so quickly!
My money woes and my worries about tomorrow won't go away overnight because of this journey. My sense of isolation and tension in being "trapped" by my own need for personal freedom will possibly return. But, right here and right now, I travelled "abroad" and it feels good to have experienced something new.
My soul is calm.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
"She loved us..."
Lars and the real girl is a truly quirky film!
Surreal at worst, beautifully crafted at best. Part Pygmalion, part The Velveteen Rabbit, this story captured my heart with its quirky off-beat humour and sensitive handling of some very difficult material.
The film stars Ryan Gosling in the title role and it deals with the subject of mental illness in a radically different way to most Hollywood portrayals of deeply disturbing and fragile states of mind.
Lars is a sweet loner in a small "northern" (it's not really specified exactly where) community. He grew up with a practically absent family it seems. His brother Gus, who has now moved back into the family home with his lovely pregnant wife, left his grieving father when Lars was very young. Lars father, we learn, was heartbroken, having lost his wife while she was giving birth to Lars. We can only guess at how this might have affected the boy during the course of his growing years, but from the picture presented brilliantly by Ryan Goslings portrayal of Lars, we guess it must have been an incredibly difficult childhood indeed.
Lars stuns his brother, sister-in-law and the town with news that he has a girlfriend. She is like no girlfriend they've ever seen before. An anatomically correct, life-sized doll named Bianca with a full and interesting background and bio. She comes into the lives of this community and they are left bewildered and staggered at how close they've come to losing one of their own to a desolation of mind too intense to be articulated. They never, ever, knew how precarious the life and mind of Lars Lindstrom has been to this point!
At the behest of the towns doctor/psychologist, they agree to go along with Lars' elaborate fantasy to the point where they too begin to adopt Bianca as one of their own.
It's a beautifully crafted, under-stated film that is both sweet and kind-hearted at its core. It's premise may be a little bit weak here and there but this is a movie about Love, Community and Sacrifice - not about the mundane realities for most people with mental illness where they tend to cop brutal shaming, bigotry and rejection rather than loving, if bemused, acceptance and tolerance. What we see here is a community who deeply cares for one of its sons and his gradual awakening to that fact.
When I was young, I believed that all my soft toys were real! My favourite story was The Velveteen Rabbit - about a soft toy becoming actually real through the power of love. To this day if anyone pressed me, I'd still say soft toys are real (when we aren't looking ;)). There is something about my own state of mind that wants to suspend disbelief long enough to will life and stories into the stuffed, softly, furnished chests of toys! And yes...I may have a delusion too!
Lars and the real girl will probably not appeal to many people. It has a slow meandering pace, where the details to Lars and his background are delivered gradually and deliberately. And, I have to admit, the subject matter is well...it's weird! That a community would tolerate a grown man believing he is in love with a sex-toy but treats her as a real woman, is a stretch. In this case however, it works and Bianca becomes as real as any girl who lived and loved!
Surreal at worst, beautifully crafted at best. Part Pygmalion, part The Velveteen Rabbit, this story captured my heart with its quirky off-beat humour and sensitive handling of some very difficult material.
The film stars Ryan Gosling in the title role and it deals with the subject of mental illness in a radically different way to most Hollywood portrayals of deeply disturbing and fragile states of mind.
Lars is a sweet loner in a small "northern" (it's not really specified exactly where) community. He grew up with a practically absent family it seems. His brother Gus, who has now moved back into the family home with his lovely pregnant wife, left his grieving father when Lars was very young. Lars father, we learn, was heartbroken, having lost his wife while she was giving birth to Lars. We can only guess at how this might have affected the boy during the course of his growing years, but from the picture presented brilliantly by Ryan Goslings portrayal of Lars, we guess it must have been an incredibly difficult childhood indeed.
Lars stuns his brother, sister-in-law and the town with news that he has a girlfriend. She is like no girlfriend they've ever seen before. An anatomically correct, life-sized doll named Bianca with a full and interesting background and bio. She comes into the lives of this community and they are left bewildered and staggered at how close they've come to losing one of their own to a desolation of mind too intense to be articulated. They never, ever, knew how precarious the life and mind of Lars Lindstrom has been to this point!
At the behest of the towns doctor/psychologist, they agree to go along with Lars' elaborate fantasy to the point where they too begin to adopt Bianca as one of their own.
It's a beautifully crafted, under-stated film that is both sweet and kind-hearted at its core. It's premise may be a little bit weak here and there but this is a movie about Love, Community and Sacrifice - not about the mundane realities for most people with mental illness where they tend to cop brutal shaming, bigotry and rejection rather than loving, if bemused, acceptance and tolerance. What we see here is a community who deeply cares for one of its sons and his gradual awakening to that fact.
When I was young, I believed that all my soft toys were real! My favourite story was The Velveteen Rabbit - about a soft toy becoming actually real through the power of love. To this day if anyone pressed me, I'd still say soft toys are real (when we aren't looking ;)). There is something about my own state of mind that wants to suspend disbelief long enough to will life and stories into the stuffed, softly, furnished chests of toys! And yes...I may have a delusion too!
Lars and the real girl will probably not appeal to many people. It has a slow meandering pace, where the details to Lars and his background are delivered gradually and deliberately. And, I have to admit, the subject matter is well...it's weird! That a community would tolerate a grown man believing he is in love with a sex-toy but treats her as a real woman, is a stretch. In this case however, it works and Bianca becomes as real as any girl who lived and loved!
is poverty a simple state of mind?
er...
no!
Lots of people on the web might tell you otherwise. That its a matter of one "manifesting" their way to better love/sex, health and preposterous riches. Which is all perfectly reasonable on the surface of course. That's "basic" "Law of Attraction" stuff where we get to play "god" of our own "Creative Destiny". You think about what you want, wish for it, pray for it, and then "align your emotional state" with the outcome and voilá! You "should" be technically much happier and wealthier and have better relationships!
(Oh but I am ever the closet cynic on this stuff *smirk* I play around with these concepts but at my core, I find them slightly "off" as in not sucking in enough Truth Serum really... it's all too self-centric and greedy sounding to me at my gut-level analysis of LOA - no matter WHO tells you that its supposed to be about 'Love for the Greater Good' and so on! Still, I do play around with it because well...that's what people - what I - love to do! Be self-centric etc!).
But okay... let's ask someone who is on "The Poverty Line" in the North world. By South World standards, the poor in the North are still incredibly wealthy, at least if they have a roof over their head and something productive to fill in time as a contribution to their membership in society and so forth. They don't HAVE to go picking rubbish tips for rags or scrape animal dung off roadsides to use for their fuel to cook a basic meal. They get regular assistance from most government agencies - well, for the most part they do, even if its dismal, its still a darn-sight better than those who don't have a hope of accessing a welfare payment in the South World.
I'm probably, right now, technically classed as being on the Australian version of "The Poverty Line". Since my separation, my income has been erratic and LOW in comparison to where I used to be as a self-employed, married wife and mother of two! Life is getting exceedingly tough to keep ahead of the financial hurdles we all face at regular intervals in the pursuit of our lifestyles - even if they're really basic lifestyles within the context of ones culture.
Right now, I am scraping every bit of income to my bank balance as I can muster and TRYING to not let it slip right out again on frivolities such as my daughters up-coming Presentation Ball for her year at College! We were told by the school that we needn't spend a fortune, but constituting what is a fortune is relative when its a fortune you don't have in the first place! My credit card got a bouncing with this mandatory event and it is going to take a looongg time to recover from it. That same amount would have easily been paid off within the month last year! How time turns on a wheel yeah?
Did I ask for this?
NO!
I can will the "Universe" or God all I like to make me rich enough to squander money like I have on fancy clothes, gloves and shoes for my beautiful 16 year old daughter to be a princess for an evening, but it won't change the fact that I am low on cash right now!
Of course, I am optimistic that this situation can and will change in the foreseeable future. I have enough Faith in God to take him at his word that he'll take care of the details. It doesn't stop me stressing right now though, over what "surprises", financially speaking, are awaiting around the corner that I have not factored into my attempts to be "reasonable" about spending!
Poverty isn't a state of mind! It's a physical environmental and social THING you respond to as you would to cooking a meal, watching a sporting event on TV, Showering, putting on makeup, dressing up, dressing down, touching a friend, feeding a pet. It doesn't come upon you because of the way you have dreamed your manifested existence, it just comes upon you at certain phases in a lifetime, like seasons do.
Of course, I'm not suggesting one need stay in a state of poverty at all! It is however something that is real and acute and that you must DO something with - or not! It CAN be a prison and a cruel one at that and it is NOT necessarily anyone's fault they're in there! INNOCENT until proven guilty my friends! Poverty can be a bit like sackcloth and ashes for some people too - they simply LOVE the kudos they feel it brings to be down and dirty and flat broke! *shrug* More power to them if that's what they like!
I suspect though that for many in the North of the world, where affluenza is a disease of chronic and unassailable proportions, our notions of poverty are rather skewed. We think we can either sweep it into the "too hard" basket and ignore it or we believe that somehow its such a sinful creation of the human condition that it must be willed away by magical thinking and that thinking rich instead will solve the problem overall for everyone (but mostly 'myself' et al).
Poverty and wealth are things we use to make a life. They are tools from the same human tool box. Both can be used in any given situation. Thing is...we don't always get to choose which tool we use - they get handed to us by someone else and the lesson then is "So how would you do that with this tool then?"
I have not asked to be broke! I've not manifested this financial (and I might add, emotional and physical versions of currently perceived poverty) position because I'm aligning my vibrational energy with such notions! Oh man! What an idiot who thought that idea! ... I've just been handed the question as to how am I going to use this tool for this life, right here and now.
Life may not be a dress rehearsal, but it sure as hell is a damned tough school sometimes!
no!
Lots of people on the web might tell you otherwise. That its a matter of one "manifesting" their way to better love/sex, health and preposterous riches. Which is all perfectly reasonable on the surface of course. That's "basic" "Law of Attraction" stuff where we get to play "god" of our own "Creative Destiny". You think about what you want, wish for it, pray for it, and then "align your emotional state" with the outcome and voilá! You "should" be technically much happier and wealthier and have better relationships!
(Oh but I am ever the closet cynic on this stuff *smirk* I play around with these concepts but at my core, I find them slightly "off" as in not sucking in enough Truth Serum really... it's all too self-centric and greedy sounding to me at my gut-level analysis of LOA - no matter WHO tells you that its supposed to be about 'Love for the Greater Good' and so on! Still, I do play around with it because well...that's what people - what I - love to do! Be self-centric etc!).
But okay... let's ask someone who is on "The Poverty Line" in the North world. By South World standards, the poor in the North are still incredibly wealthy, at least if they have a roof over their head and something productive to fill in time as a contribution to their membership in society and so forth. They don't HAVE to go picking rubbish tips for rags or scrape animal dung off roadsides to use for their fuel to cook a basic meal. They get regular assistance from most government agencies - well, for the most part they do, even if its dismal, its still a darn-sight better than those who don't have a hope of accessing a welfare payment in the South World.
I'm probably, right now, technically classed as being on the Australian version of "The Poverty Line". Since my separation, my income has been erratic and LOW in comparison to where I used to be as a self-employed, married wife and mother of two! Life is getting exceedingly tough to keep ahead of the financial hurdles we all face at regular intervals in the pursuit of our lifestyles - even if they're really basic lifestyles within the context of ones culture.
Right now, I am scraping every bit of income to my bank balance as I can muster and TRYING to not let it slip right out again on frivolities such as my daughters up-coming Presentation Ball for her year at College! We were told by the school that we needn't spend a fortune, but constituting what is a fortune is relative when its a fortune you don't have in the first place! My credit card got a bouncing with this mandatory event and it is going to take a looongg time to recover from it. That same amount would have easily been paid off within the month last year! How time turns on a wheel yeah?
Did I ask for this?
NO!
I can will the "Universe" or God all I like to make me rich enough to squander money like I have on fancy clothes, gloves and shoes for my beautiful 16 year old daughter to be a princess for an evening, but it won't change the fact that I am low on cash right now!
Of course, I am optimistic that this situation can and will change in the foreseeable future. I have enough Faith in God to take him at his word that he'll take care of the details. It doesn't stop me stressing right now though, over what "surprises", financially speaking, are awaiting around the corner that I have not factored into my attempts to be "reasonable" about spending!
Poverty isn't a state of mind! It's a physical environmental and social THING you respond to as you would to cooking a meal, watching a sporting event on TV, Showering, putting on makeup, dressing up, dressing down, touching a friend, feeding a pet. It doesn't come upon you because of the way you have dreamed your manifested existence, it just comes upon you at certain phases in a lifetime, like seasons do.
Of course, I'm not suggesting one need stay in a state of poverty at all! It is however something that is real and acute and that you must DO something with - or not! It CAN be a prison and a cruel one at that and it is NOT necessarily anyone's fault they're in there! INNOCENT until proven guilty my friends! Poverty can be a bit like sackcloth and ashes for some people too - they simply LOVE the kudos they feel it brings to be down and dirty and flat broke! *shrug* More power to them if that's what they like!
I suspect though that for many in the North of the world, where affluenza is a disease of chronic and unassailable proportions, our notions of poverty are rather skewed. We think we can either sweep it into the "too hard" basket and ignore it or we believe that somehow its such a sinful creation of the human condition that it must be willed away by magical thinking and that thinking rich instead will solve the problem overall for everyone (but mostly 'myself' et al).
Poverty and wealth are things we use to make a life. They are tools from the same human tool box. Both can be used in any given situation. Thing is...we don't always get to choose which tool we use - they get handed to us by someone else and the lesson then is "So how would you do that with this tool then?"
I have not asked to be broke! I've not manifested this financial (and I might add, emotional and physical versions of currently perceived poverty) position because I'm aligning my vibrational energy with such notions! Oh man! What an idiot who thought that idea! ... I've just been handed the question as to how am I going to use this tool for this life, right here and now.
Life may not be a dress rehearsal, but it sure as hell is a damned tough school sometimes!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
A wee gem of a show about poo
Shane Jacobson is pure genius!
The man has invented a character so charming and disarming that he, aka "Kenny", positively reeks with genuine warmth, good humour, affable charm and extraordinary integrity towards people of all races and creeds!
I'm currently addicted to the half hour TV show on our Channel Ten here called "Kenny's World" on Wednesday evenings (yes! I should be studying! *sigh*). If you click the title of this blog post, the link will take you to the online video's of the same TV show. They're well worth the time to watch if you have a good fast broadband connection and if you're reasonably comfortable with some mild swearing and strange Aussie terminologies.
The show celebrates the International Year of Sanitation. What a fantastic idea! Not only am I being thoroughly entertained but I'm learning a LOT about the world in terms of how we manage and attend to the most fundamental aspects of all human life across the planet, that being, the way we manage our personal waste.
With gentle tongue-in-cheek humour, Kenny leads us on a whirlwind tour of the worlds toilets and associated side-stories. Tonight in Episode 3, I learned that 42 percent of the entire worlds population is without decent sanitation! I also learned about the amazing efforts of a humble man in Singapore determined to change this fact. Marvellous stuff really.
There are probably some people for whom this subject would cause the disgruntled and disgusted "Ewww!" with all the associated distate of having to speak of such things as "Poo" and "Wee"! I feel very sorry for these people! Access to appropriate, planet friendly sanitation is, in my opinion, a fundamental right of every citizen.
We in the affluent "North" of the World with our postulating on what we think is "best" for everyone else would do well to take note of how some of our Asian cousins handle the issue quite frankly! We do need to talk about how we manage and apply planet-friendly ways for reducing our reliance on water-guzzling cisterns and how we can effectively provide sanitation that is cheap, reliable and clean for the children of the world. Note this bit of info from Mr Sim, that approximately one million children a year die from diarrhea associated with poor sanitation! That is what's really disgusting!
But anyway, I am being absolutely charmed - and educated - by the wonderful character of Kenny and am finding this show to be one of the highlights of my TV viewing year (there has been a real dearth of those highlights until now I might add!).
Catch'yez!
The man has invented a character so charming and disarming that he, aka "Kenny", positively reeks with genuine warmth, good humour, affable charm and extraordinary integrity towards people of all races and creeds!
I'm currently addicted to the half hour TV show on our Channel Ten here called "Kenny's World" on Wednesday evenings (yes! I should be studying! *sigh*). If you click the title of this blog post, the link will take you to the online video's of the same TV show. They're well worth the time to watch if you have a good fast broadband connection and if you're reasonably comfortable with some mild swearing and strange Aussie terminologies.
The show celebrates the International Year of Sanitation. What a fantastic idea! Not only am I being thoroughly entertained but I'm learning a LOT about the world in terms of how we manage and attend to the most fundamental aspects of all human life across the planet, that being, the way we manage our personal waste.
With gentle tongue-in-cheek humour, Kenny leads us on a whirlwind tour of the worlds toilets and associated side-stories. Tonight in Episode 3, I learned that 42 percent of the entire worlds population is without decent sanitation! I also learned about the amazing efforts of a humble man in Singapore determined to change this fact. Marvellous stuff really.
There are probably some people for whom this subject would cause the disgruntled and disgusted "Ewww!" with all the associated distate of having to speak of such things as "Poo" and "Wee"! I feel very sorry for these people! Access to appropriate, planet friendly sanitation is, in my opinion, a fundamental right of every citizen.
We in the affluent "North" of the World with our postulating on what we think is "best" for everyone else would do well to take note of how some of our Asian cousins handle the issue quite frankly! We do need to talk about how we manage and apply planet-friendly ways for reducing our reliance on water-guzzling cisterns and how we can effectively provide sanitation that is cheap, reliable and clean for the children of the world. Note this bit of info from Mr Sim, that approximately one million children a year die from diarrhea associated with poor sanitation! That is what's really disgusting!
But anyway, I am being absolutely charmed - and educated - by the wonderful character of Kenny and am finding this show to be one of the highlights of my TV viewing year (there has been a real dearth of those highlights until now I might add!).
Catch'yez!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
my strange metaphor for Knowledge
Picture this:
A large spider in the centre of an even larger, robust web, glittering with dew drops in the morning sunlight. Each of the spiders 8 legs, is actually a finely honed tuning fork. Each tuning fork is pitched at a different tone. The spider pings a thread within the web with a particular tuning fork. It's just a quick flick. The tone travels out along the interwoven threads of the web and the dew drops bounce and swerve, dance and glitter as the vibrational energy of the sound and the physical shove on their silken wire mobilizes them.
The dew drops slide and gather together to form new dew drops, larger or smaller than their original size. Some drops drip right off the web and onto the plant matter below, forever disconnected from the song the spider plays at will overhead. It doesn't matter. The dew drops that fall down will feed the life that will in turn eventually support the spider in its quest.
The Spider is Knowledge.
The web is the vast human connected world that receives, responds and supplies Knowledge.
This is connectivism in action.
Does this mean that Knowledge is at the hub of things? Does this mean that Knowledge is implied as some kind of Entity outside of usual and common human interaction?
Yes and No!
Spiders are living things. So is Knowledge. It moves, grows, changes, gives birth to and dies just as any living thing does. Knowledge isn't static.
But it does have tuning forks for legs!
Every nuanced move of Knowledge's leg is a beautifully and carefully orchestrated pitch on a particular scale sent to achieve a particular and carefully orchestrated end. Knowledge loves to feed and it is gluttonous and greedy but also patient and resilient. It pitches for more of what it wants and it usually gets it - for the web is an attractive rather sticky thing. It brings things to it that makes the spider grow and get fat.
Tuning forks have a function. They provide a perfect pitch. A sound. In order to produce that sound, one must tap at the fork so it resonates.
ALL KNOWLEDGE RESONATES. In order to make Knowledge resonate, you need to tap the tuning fork. That's all it takes. A simple tap and the sound and the vibration will do the rest.
This is what both attracts things to the spider and what the spider imparts outwards.
Maybe its a bad metaphor. But to me it's more ecologically quantifiable than pipes!
A large spider in the centre of an even larger, robust web, glittering with dew drops in the morning sunlight. Each of the spiders 8 legs, is actually a finely honed tuning fork. Each tuning fork is pitched at a different tone. The spider pings a thread within the web with a particular tuning fork. It's just a quick flick. The tone travels out along the interwoven threads of the web and the dew drops bounce and swerve, dance and glitter as the vibrational energy of the sound and the physical shove on their silken wire mobilizes them.
The dew drops slide and gather together to form new dew drops, larger or smaller than their original size. Some drops drip right off the web and onto the plant matter below, forever disconnected from the song the spider plays at will overhead. It doesn't matter. The dew drops that fall down will feed the life that will in turn eventually support the spider in its quest.
The Spider is Knowledge.
The web is the vast human connected world that receives, responds and supplies Knowledge.
This is connectivism in action.
Does this mean that Knowledge is at the hub of things? Does this mean that Knowledge is implied as some kind of Entity outside of usual and common human interaction?
Yes and No!
Spiders are living things. So is Knowledge. It moves, grows, changes, gives birth to and dies just as any living thing does. Knowledge isn't static.
But it does have tuning forks for legs!
Every nuanced move of Knowledge's leg is a beautifully and carefully orchestrated pitch on a particular scale sent to achieve a particular and carefully orchestrated end. Knowledge loves to feed and it is gluttonous and greedy but also patient and resilient. It pitches for more of what it wants and it usually gets it - for the web is an attractive rather sticky thing. It brings things to it that makes the spider grow and get fat.
Tuning forks have a function. They provide a perfect pitch. A sound. In order to produce that sound, one must tap at the fork so it resonates.
ALL KNOWLEDGE RESONATES. In order to make Knowledge resonate, you need to tap the tuning fork. That's all it takes. A simple tap and the sound and the vibration will do the rest.
This is what both attracts things to the spider and what the spider imparts outwards.
Maybe its a bad metaphor. But to me it's more ecologically quantifiable than pipes!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The subjective truth and nothing but my subjective truth
Zeitgeist is not a movie for the faint-hearted christian! At least for the first 30 minutes or so.
In a rather clever story-telling exercise that more or less "proves" the "myth" that is the religion Christianity, by linking it to astro-theological evidence extending as far back as Egyptian Sun-god worship, it's hard not to feel decidedly uncomfortable as a Christian, watching this, and also not feel rather foolish or alternatively indignant at the claims!
I felt both in the first part of this very interesting, but disturbing viewing experience. I did not want to believe this information at all! It offended and frightened me. I could feel the muddied waters of doubt in my gut, swirling about and I fought with every last ounce of "Belief" I could muster (or which The Spirit, himself could muster within me), to fight my deeply rooted fear of sliding into total disbelief in the very religion and faith system to which I have ascribed most of my life - and character - this past 46 years or so! It, the first 30 minutes or so of this movie, defined the nature and idea of Christianity as being one massive conspiracy theory which almost entirely exists as a man-made myth dating back many thousands upon thousands of years! I could not - and do not - wish to believe it even if on the surface it seems perfectly plausible from the way the information is presented in this film!
It was a very uncomfortable experience and I nearly stopped watching a few times. But I plodded on. I've not read or heard much about this movie, suffice it to say that its title crops up in conversations and in different places on the net enough that I thought it was time I caught up with what it was about.
Interestingly, as I watched the second half of the movie, which is again a clever story-telling exercise in disclaiming much of the hype that surrounded the attacks on the World Trade Centres in New York, U.S.A on September 11 2001, I was very much prepared to believe what I was being told! Absolutely ready to believe it! The information is pretty much a conspiracy theory extraordinaire, indicting the U.S.A. Government of obscene atrocities against its own! Marvellous fodder for the cynic at heart! I'm all for it! Ready to believe what I'm being fed with a giant spoon and with gluttonous joy and delight!
What a difference a belief can make in the soul of a woman yeah?
Both scenario's are presented in a way that outlines the probable LIE behind each "myth". One I refuse to accept and believe. The other I'm ready to welcome as The Truth with an open mind!
My nature is to be highly susceptible to Ideas. I'm easily swayed by a good argument and have ALWAYS had a lot of trouble defending my side of an argument succinctly or with clear winning evidence. I am simply left mumbling in convoluted incoherence whenever someone very clever can present their version of The Truth more clearly and definitively than I can. I need time to go away and muse on things, to define the structure and nuances of what I believe about the "facts" as presented, to research and inform myself of the background on the arguments for and against. Then I MIGHT be able to come back with a clear and reasonable prima facie case of my own. Maybe! More often than not - at least until recent years - I've been swayed instead to the side where the argument appears strongest.
This movie, Zeitgeist, is incredibly clever and intelligent sounding in its portrayal of the information it wishes to convey. It might have easily swayed me once upon a time (or I'd have run for the hills in fear of it probably), but now I see how I CAN be manipulated to believe something that I've not decided for myself to believe!
I am not particularly fussed if God is indeed a Myth! I want to believe in this God because I am comforted when I feel as loved and as valued as I do within this faith I own. Nothing else that I have thus far experienced in life can bring me the level of assurance, comfort and personal peace within, as believing in a God who is ever-present albeit Invisible!
The way I figure it is...if its a myth and a stupid lie then I simply die a bit foolish and nothing much else will happen. If it is however a profound truth of the human condition that God is who He says he is (and who may well have visited mankind in each age as a savior for each age according to that ages faith), then I have everything to gain don't I, even after my death!
I AM particularly fussed that September 11 is a frustrating political machination of human evils perpetrated for the pleasure and political purposes of power-hungry men! I will readily believe the stupidity of mankind enough to say "Yeah! The conspiracy of 9/11 is quite probable" even though we'll probably never really know the absolute truth to the story!
Zeitgeist is not an easy film if you have a weak faith or alternatively, have too much vested interest in having your own very subjective belief systems "justified" by such "facts"! It can work either way for the extremely fundamentalist Christian zealot who decries such evidence against their faith as a tool of Satan and it can work for the Atheist who claps their hands with glee in being able to soundly disprove the myth of religion on an equally zealous scale! It will also polarise those of the pro-war on terror activists and those who believe emphatically in the Government Agency conspiracies surrounding September 11 2001.
The third part of this movie had me smiling somewhat by the end. For all the disparaging of Christianity, much of the thesis of the third part of Zeitgeist is almost text book Fundamentalist Right-wing extreme Pentecostal Christian "dogma" on End Times! I heard much of this stuff back in the early 80's from various charismatic/pentecostal christian evangelists espousing the terrible events of Armageddon, and "The Mark of the Beast" aka micro-chipping (back then it was bar coding). Nothing new under the sun really! No pun intended!
The person this movie is aimed at though, I believe, is the hapless, undecided "Don't-know-much" aspirational christian/agnostic/sceptic/layman. This movie seems to be specifically designed to polarise the middle of the undecided road into moving toward a specific direction - the direction the movie seems to want us to go - which I think,is "Everything you ever believed is a Lie!" Well... that's as close as I can get to its Thesis Statement anyway.
The movies ending is a nicely packaged homely we can all aspire to which gives most of the prior information a kind of humanistic "We're all in this together" sense of rightness and virtue. Thing is, human beings have always aspired to being One People United in Love - we're just a tad chaotic in how to we attempt to get to that goal! Always will be if you happen to believe in "sin" as I do!
The Truth...the REAL Truth in any story is there, but how we are led to that Truth is a convoluted jungle pathway of twists, turns, and deviations, all of which are led and espoused by too many compasses pointing to too many different Norths to be entirely trusted! It's EASY to be manipulated! Really, really easy! It does behoove us to be especially careful in this day and age of vast amounts of information propounding "The facts", that those very facts may be contrived and constructed purposefully in order to steer our beliefs and thinking in a particular direction.
Question Your Beliefs.....
............................ but know when you need to stay firm in your Faith too!
In a rather clever story-telling exercise that more or less "proves" the "myth" that is the religion Christianity, by linking it to astro-theological evidence extending as far back as Egyptian Sun-god worship, it's hard not to feel decidedly uncomfortable as a Christian, watching this, and also not feel rather foolish or alternatively indignant at the claims!
I felt both in the first part of this very interesting, but disturbing viewing experience. I did not want to believe this information at all! It offended and frightened me. I could feel the muddied waters of doubt in my gut, swirling about and I fought with every last ounce of "Belief" I could muster (or which The Spirit, himself could muster within me), to fight my deeply rooted fear of sliding into total disbelief in the very religion and faith system to which I have ascribed most of my life - and character - this past 46 years or so! It, the first 30 minutes or so of this movie, defined the nature and idea of Christianity as being one massive conspiracy theory which almost entirely exists as a man-made myth dating back many thousands upon thousands of years! I could not - and do not - wish to believe it even if on the surface it seems perfectly plausible from the way the information is presented in this film!
It was a very uncomfortable experience and I nearly stopped watching a few times. But I plodded on. I've not read or heard much about this movie, suffice it to say that its title crops up in conversations and in different places on the net enough that I thought it was time I caught up with what it was about.
Interestingly, as I watched the second half of the movie, which is again a clever story-telling exercise in disclaiming much of the hype that surrounded the attacks on the World Trade Centres in New York, U.S.A on September 11 2001, I was very much prepared to believe what I was being told! Absolutely ready to believe it! The information is pretty much a conspiracy theory extraordinaire, indicting the U.S.A. Government of obscene atrocities against its own! Marvellous fodder for the cynic at heart! I'm all for it! Ready to believe what I'm being fed with a giant spoon and with gluttonous joy and delight!
What a difference a belief can make in the soul of a woman yeah?
Both scenario's are presented in a way that outlines the probable LIE behind each "myth". One I refuse to accept and believe. The other I'm ready to welcome as The Truth with an open mind!
My nature is to be highly susceptible to Ideas. I'm easily swayed by a good argument and have ALWAYS had a lot of trouble defending my side of an argument succinctly or with clear winning evidence. I am simply left mumbling in convoluted incoherence whenever someone very clever can present their version of The Truth more clearly and definitively than I can. I need time to go away and muse on things, to define the structure and nuances of what I believe about the "facts" as presented, to research and inform myself of the background on the arguments for and against. Then I MIGHT be able to come back with a clear and reasonable prima facie case of my own. Maybe! More often than not - at least until recent years - I've been swayed instead to the side where the argument appears strongest.
This movie, Zeitgeist, is incredibly clever and intelligent sounding in its portrayal of the information it wishes to convey. It might have easily swayed me once upon a time (or I'd have run for the hills in fear of it probably), but now I see how I CAN be manipulated to believe something that I've not decided for myself to believe!
I am not particularly fussed if God is indeed a Myth! I want to believe in this God because I am comforted when I feel as loved and as valued as I do within this faith I own. Nothing else that I have thus far experienced in life can bring me the level of assurance, comfort and personal peace within, as believing in a God who is ever-present albeit Invisible!
The way I figure it is...if its a myth and a stupid lie then I simply die a bit foolish and nothing much else will happen. If it is however a profound truth of the human condition that God is who He says he is (and who may well have visited mankind in each age as a savior for each age according to that ages faith), then I have everything to gain don't I, even after my death!
I AM particularly fussed that September 11 is a frustrating political machination of human evils perpetrated for the pleasure and political purposes of power-hungry men! I will readily believe the stupidity of mankind enough to say "Yeah! The conspiracy of 9/11 is quite probable" even though we'll probably never really know the absolute truth to the story!
Zeitgeist is not an easy film if you have a weak faith or alternatively, have too much vested interest in having your own very subjective belief systems "justified" by such "facts"! It can work either way for the extremely fundamentalist Christian zealot who decries such evidence against their faith as a tool of Satan and it can work for the Atheist who claps their hands with glee in being able to soundly disprove the myth of religion on an equally zealous scale! It will also polarise those of the pro-war on terror activists and those who believe emphatically in the Government Agency conspiracies surrounding September 11 2001.
The third part of this movie had me smiling somewhat by the end. For all the disparaging of Christianity, much of the thesis of the third part of Zeitgeist is almost text book Fundamentalist Right-wing extreme Pentecostal Christian "dogma" on End Times! I heard much of this stuff back in the early 80's from various charismatic/pentecostal christian evangelists espousing the terrible events of Armageddon, and "The Mark of the Beast" aka micro-chipping (back then it was bar coding). Nothing new under the sun really! No pun intended!
The person this movie is aimed at though, I believe, is the hapless, undecided "Don't-know-much" aspirational christian/agnostic/sceptic/layman. This movie seems to be specifically designed to polarise the middle of the undecided road into moving toward a specific direction - the direction the movie seems to want us to go - which I think,is "Everything you ever believed is a Lie!" Well... that's as close as I can get to its Thesis Statement anyway.
The movies ending is a nicely packaged homely we can all aspire to which gives most of the prior information a kind of humanistic "We're all in this together" sense of rightness and virtue. Thing is, human beings have always aspired to being One People United in Love - we're just a tad chaotic in how to we attempt to get to that goal! Always will be if you happen to believe in "sin" as I do!
The Truth...the REAL Truth in any story is there, but how we are led to that Truth is a convoluted jungle pathway of twists, turns, and deviations, all of which are led and espoused by too many compasses pointing to too many different Norths to be entirely trusted! It's EASY to be manipulated! Really, really easy! It does behoove us to be especially careful in this day and age of vast amounts of information propounding "The facts", that those very facts may be contrived and constructed purposefully in order to steer our beliefs and thinking in a particular direction.
Question Your Beliefs.....
............................ but know when you need to stay firm in your Faith too!
How, When, Where, Who with and Why?
Hedge'a'macation!
We all do it even when we think we're not doing it!
I mean Education of course.
Dave has written a post on the CCK08 project for week 2 and it got me thinking. I've only sort of been following the blogs on this project. I'm currently undertaking my own slightly more traditional studies via Online Universities Australia. It's just a pre-cursor course in Tertiary Learning Strategies, which is really a fancy way of saying "I'm learning how to write essays the way the Uni wants me to".
While the CCK08 project does leave me a little cynical as to its purpose and success, I'm also battling with cynicism and frustration by the truck-load with this current Unit I'm doing.
Right now, I'm in the throes of developing my Assignment 2 topic which is to summarise in 350 words a chapter written in typically grandiose academic parlance on the challenges of juxtaposing Human Rights and non egalitarian, traditionalist societies where community rights seem to far outstrip individual "rights", and trying to find a consensus between the two!
My particular challenge, apart from having to summarise (something I am, for obvious reasons, not very good at), is finding a study partner I can swap notes with on equal footing. This particular online uni course seems to have dug people from out of the woodwork who are terrified of the written word to such a degree they're hyper-focussed on formatting their assignment pages before they even get to skimming the texts available!
Perhaps I am being a bit harsh though. Many of my fellow students have not "studied" under any formal institutional learning regime for many years and things are very different at tertiary level now than they are/were at High School 10 to 30 years ago!
Learning for me is already instinctive. I may not necessarily follow the prescribed patterns of learning according to the topic notes and objectives etc. But I DO learn by myself quite happily at my own pace and in my own unique way. Learning for me is a process of me 1) needing to know and 2) finding out what I need to know and 3) sourcing the places/people/stuff where I can find out what I need to know.
My biggest learning hurdle with this current course I'm doing isn't going to be about researching, reading or so on - it's going to be in the area of writing in a prescribed fashion for a particular academic audience who have an expectation in that regard. That sucks but I'll deal with it and perhaps my writing may even improve as a result! It can't hurt anyway. *cough cough*
Still! I'm deeply frustrated that I can't find anyone to share this journey of discovery with (re the Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention subject I've chosen to work my next few assignments on) even though there's about a third or so of 500 students doing the same topic!
Perhaps I've come across in the forums as a bit of a educational "snob" in the way I express stuff! Perhaps, I've been intimidating in my discussion-in-text style! Perhaps I'm not "joining in" enough in the dross and flotsam of notice-board exposition with the ubiquitous "Help me! I'm lost - how do you.....?" posts! "er...that was covered in the above 10 posts higher up in this noticeboard" etc etc. *sigh*
I simply want intelligent conversations with people who are EQUAL to me in their prior knowledge of computer communications, writing and their interest in the topic itself! THAT's what is proving to be the biggest issue for me as to my learning right now. Which of course makes Daves comments completely accurate when he says that most effective learning is done in context and through conversations with peers!
I'd have not believed him if I were not experiencing the dearth of such a thing myself right now!
We all do it even when we think we're not doing it!
I mean Education of course.
Dave has written a post on the CCK08 project for week 2 and it got me thinking. I've only sort of been following the blogs on this project. I'm currently undertaking my own slightly more traditional studies via Online Universities Australia. It's just a pre-cursor course in Tertiary Learning Strategies, which is really a fancy way of saying "I'm learning how to write essays the way the Uni wants me to".
While the CCK08 project does leave me a little cynical as to its purpose and success, I'm also battling with cynicism and frustration by the truck-load with this current Unit I'm doing.
Right now, I'm in the throes of developing my Assignment 2 topic which is to summarise in 350 words a chapter written in typically grandiose academic parlance on the challenges of juxtaposing Human Rights and non egalitarian, traditionalist societies where community rights seem to far outstrip individual "rights", and trying to find a consensus between the two!
My particular challenge, apart from having to summarise (something I am, for obvious reasons, not very good at), is finding a study partner I can swap notes with on equal footing. This particular online uni course seems to have dug people from out of the woodwork who are terrified of the written word to such a degree they're hyper-focussed on formatting their assignment pages before they even get to skimming the texts available!
Perhaps I am being a bit harsh though. Many of my fellow students have not "studied" under any formal institutional learning regime for many years and things are very different at tertiary level now than they are/were at High School 10 to 30 years ago!
Learning for me is already instinctive. I may not necessarily follow the prescribed patterns of learning according to the topic notes and objectives etc. But I DO learn by myself quite happily at my own pace and in my own unique way. Learning for me is a process of me 1) needing to know and 2) finding out what I need to know and 3) sourcing the places/people/stuff where I can find out what I need to know.
My biggest learning hurdle with this current course I'm doing isn't going to be about researching, reading or so on - it's going to be in the area of writing in a prescribed fashion for a particular academic audience who have an expectation in that regard. That sucks but I'll deal with it and perhaps my writing may even improve as a result! It can't hurt anyway. *cough cough*
Still! I'm deeply frustrated that I can't find anyone to share this journey of discovery with (re the Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention subject I've chosen to work my next few assignments on) even though there's about a third or so of 500 students doing the same topic!
Perhaps I've come across in the forums as a bit of a educational "snob" in the way I express stuff! Perhaps, I've been intimidating in my discussion-in-text style! Perhaps I'm not "joining in" enough in the dross and flotsam of notice-board exposition with the ubiquitous "Help me! I'm lost - how do you.....?" posts! "er...that was covered in the above 10 posts higher up in this noticeboard" etc etc. *sigh*
I simply want intelligent conversations with people who are EQUAL to me in their prior knowledge of computer communications, writing and their interest in the topic itself! THAT's what is proving to be the biggest issue for me as to my learning right now. Which of course makes Daves comments completely accurate when he says that most effective learning is done in context and through conversations with peers!
I'd have not believed him if I were not experiencing the dearth of such a thing myself right now!
Friday, September 19, 2008
blog block
Yeah!
The dreaded scourge of bloggers everywhere! Blog Block!
Argh! what to write? What to say?
It's enough to drive a girl nuts!
I love my blog; I adore writing in my blog! However, when it feels like there's "nothing" much to say - it seems futile to try and push the words to come forth.
I actually have a TextEdit page here on my hard-drive with possible topics to muse upon in here but as I look at my dashed off notes - written in the inspired heat of a moment when the ideas sprang forth like gazelles over tumble weeds, but which I had not time right then and there to develop into words - and I'm left cold and uninspired by them.
*sigh* Words are my tools. They're how I THINK. I think and imagine in both words AND pictures. I cannot imagine pictures without the running commentary of words panning across the visions in my mind. I'm both visual and aural in my thinking processes.
Words on the page, the literary word, displayed in characterisations and symbolic archetypes - and therefore essentially a visual pursuit really if you boiled it down to its essence - they're how I muse; how I decide things; how I formulate and cohere all the messy symbols that my busy mind perceives.
Words are my life-line to thinking straight. They're the rosary beads of my meditations, the camels in my caravanserai of psychological rectitude, the pulchritudinous jewels of my frontal cortex.
I love words!
But alas! Today I have Blog Block and the words won't come so well.
Poor Blog that writes nothing of note: Poor Blogger who's brow does crease in desperate concentration on the nothing!
The dreaded scourge of bloggers everywhere! Blog Block!
Argh! what to write? What to say?
It's enough to drive a girl nuts!
I love my blog; I adore writing in my blog! However, when it feels like there's "nothing" much to say - it seems futile to try and push the words to come forth.
I actually have a TextEdit page here on my hard-drive with possible topics to muse upon in here but as I look at my dashed off notes - written in the inspired heat of a moment when the ideas sprang forth like gazelles over tumble weeds, but which I had not time right then and there to develop into words - and I'm left cold and uninspired by them.
*sigh* Words are my tools. They're how I THINK. I think and imagine in both words AND pictures. I cannot imagine pictures without the running commentary of words panning across the visions in my mind. I'm both visual and aural in my thinking processes.
Words on the page, the literary word, displayed in characterisations and symbolic archetypes - and therefore essentially a visual pursuit really if you boiled it down to its essence - they're how I muse; how I decide things; how I formulate and cohere all the messy symbols that my busy mind perceives.
Words are my life-line to thinking straight. They're the rosary beads of my meditations, the camels in my caravanserai of psychological rectitude, the pulchritudinous jewels of my frontal cortex.
I love words!
But alas! Today I have Blog Block and the words won't come so well.
Poor Blog that writes nothing of note: Poor Blogger who's brow does crease in desperate concentration on the nothing!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
First steps in a new kind of "job"
I'm experimenting with a new kind of writing concept.
Not sure if it even exists out there in the market place or on the net actually but I guess its worth a try.
I'm offering my services as a writer of greeting card messages.
Yeah! It's weird and a bit "huh?" but it's something I have apparently always been able to do instinctively and "easily". We will see of course if that is actually true and not just my dear mother being "supportive" of her daughter-scribe.
Lots of people choose a card for its pertinence to the person they intend to give it to. However, a lot of the time, the card's pre-printed message isn't always everything that you want to say even though the picture and the concept seem to sort of "match".
Lots of people have trouble trying to figure out what to say in messages and greeting cards.
There is a booming home hobby industry in card-making where beautiful one-off, handmade paper craft creations are crying out for suitable words to be added.
So here's the thing I'm going to try...
I'll write heaps of greeting card messages and put them on this other blog. You select something that you want to use and then you copy it, either in your own handwriting, or just copy, paste, print according to how you want to use it. These messages on the blog are available for free for now. I intend to incorporate a Tip Jar for those honest souls who like to reward for services rendered.
I'm still not exactly sure how to make this a marketable and viable business that supplements (or surpasses) the current income, but we're working on that aspect.
Coaching people in writing messages that come from their own hearts and voices may be the possibility down the line. Time will tell if that is possible or desired by the market, although, I do have to say that I can totally see myself helping some poor bloke construct his personal marriage vows! hahaha Oh! But, that would be an awesome contribution I could make to the world! Yeah? :)
This is a new concept and I'm willing to explore lots of possibilities with it. If you have ideas about how to make this something extraordinary, drop me a line and express your opinion.
The question really is "Would you buy the words you wanted to say, if you couldn't come up with them yourself?"
Not sure if it even exists out there in the market place or on the net actually but I guess its worth a try.
I'm offering my services as a writer of greeting card messages.
Yeah! It's weird and a bit "huh?" but it's something I have apparently always been able to do instinctively and "easily". We will see of course if that is actually true and not just my dear mother being "supportive" of her daughter-scribe.
Lots of people choose a card for its pertinence to the person they intend to give it to. However, a lot of the time, the card's pre-printed message isn't always everything that you want to say even though the picture and the concept seem to sort of "match".
Lots of people have trouble trying to figure out what to say in messages and greeting cards.
There is a booming home hobby industry in card-making where beautiful one-off, handmade paper craft creations are crying out for suitable words to be added.
So here's the thing I'm going to try...
I'll write heaps of greeting card messages and put them on this other blog. You select something that you want to use and then you copy it, either in your own handwriting, or just copy, paste, print according to how you want to use it. These messages on the blog are available for free for now. I intend to incorporate a Tip Jar for those honest souls who like to reward for services rendered.
I'm still not exactly sure how to make this a marketable and viable business that supplements (or surpasses) the current income, but we're working on that aspect.
Coaching people in writing messages that come from their own hearts and voices may be the possibility down the line. Time will tell if that is possible or desired by the market, although, I do have to say that I can totally see myself helping some poor bloke construct his personal marriage vows! hahaha Oh! But, that would be an awesome contribution I could make to the world! Yeah? :)
This is a new concept and I'm willing to explore lots of possibilities with it. If you have ideas about how to make this something extraordinary, drop me a line and express your opinion.
The question really is "Would you buy the words you wanted to say, if you couldn't come up with them yourself?"
Saturday, September 13, 2008
What the hell is "Connectivism"?
It's a "new" buzz-word creeping into the conversation that is The Internet.
So far as I can ascertain from a very non-intensive reading of the blog, it's about how learning is "changing" and the process of creating a method of education that is more unilateral and egalitarian than traditional forms of learning.
The fundamental questions of how people learn, why people learn and where, when and who with will they learn are being discussed and critiqued in a kind of giant open-learning experiment currently happening in a small corner of the www.
There are apparently about 2000 people "doing the course", which involves lots of discussion time (conversations) in various locations using the remote communications of the internet itself.
At present, it seems that much of the "learning" is a collective debate on the subject itself.
What IS Connectivism and is it "useful" for the future of education?
I guess it is inevitable really. The whole analogy of the Internet being a "web" has virtually (sic), generated this concept into an actual Thing we can conceive of and utilise for other purposes including the way we learn stuff.
My interpretation, which by no means, have I shared in the discussions with course participants (I'm an outsider looking in at the moment), is that Learning - which is the information one is expected to or naturally acquires, culturally, socially or individually, in order to effectively produce a value-added purpose for existing in the world and bettering it (or not) - has for the past few hundred years or so been a very hierarchical thing. Pump the stuff in and expect the same stuff to be pumped out for future generations and so on.
Connectivism suggests (from my personal observations so far), that learning is now beginning to take on a kind of networked, peer-to-peer quality through discussion, conversation and reciprocated experiential transactions.
It's kind of Socratic actually, although not strictly so. Socratic learning asks questions that lead to other questions that lead to thinking about the subject and further discussions that springboard off from there to more questions and new subjects that circle around back to the original idea. Except, that in this instance there is no actual Socrates himself presiding over the course of discussion and steering it according to his own deliberate and cunning modus operandi.
Whereas Socratic method is reducing things down from a hypothesis to a universal Truth, Connectivism seems to want to deliberately explode the hypothesis into yet a thousand more. Connectivism appears to want to force - naturally that is - learning, to conduit expansively rather than reduce a learning process down a defined pathway to fundamental empirical evidence.
What will this achieve?
Not sure really. It could prove rather confusing in the end. If everyone is everyone else's teacher, who then has the Actual Thing that can be defined? And is that Actual Thing necessary anyway? The debate could be infinite on that last point btw!
When everyone is an expert on everything, nothing can be quantified or qualified. Or so it seems to me. It will be interesting to see if Connectivism as a learning tool does achieve a kind of collective hive-mind consensus on a topic or issue of discussion. It will be interesting indeedy, if ego's can be kept outside of the discussions and those participating can refrain from needing to have their personal opinions exemplified.
The cynic side of me has already assumed that collective learning with no defined structure or hierarchy will be just one big bun-fight with way too many obsessive self interests to be viable over the long term. If anyone does learn something from this, it will be the instigators of the course itself! What they'll learn is probably how to be good bouncers at a rage party!
I am intrigued by this experiment currently being conducted even so. The use of the net as a device for learning is obviously going to become increasingly more valued by our culture, if it isn't already! I myself, am currently doing a tertiary unit of study at an Aussie university via the Internet, so doubting the process is rather silly when I know its already possible and am doing it myself.
The two styles of learning are quite different though. My uni studies are still very much based in traditional concepts of reductionist thinking. Connectivism seems to be somewhat opposed to this process. I could be wrong though on that.
Still, right now, I kind of visualise the whole concept of learning through networking a bit of a confusing jumble of too many ideas with not enough meat on any of them. Like sprinkling salt on the sea.
I also think there might be too many "chiefs" and that the "indians" are all far too interested in making sure THEIR ideas are the best ones (and ergo... are THE 'Chief').
Live and learn though no matter what :)
So far as I can ascertain from a very non-intensive reading of the blog, it's about how learning is "changing" and the process of creating a method of education that is more unilateral and egalitarian than traditional forms of learning.
The fundamental questions of how people learn, why people learn and where, when and who with will they learn are being discussed and critiqued in a kind of giant open-learning experiment currently happening in a small corner of the www.
There are apparently about 2000 people "doing the course", which involves lots of discussion time (conversations) in various locations using the remote communications of the internet itself.
At present, it seems that much of the "learning" is a collective debate on the subject itself.
What IS Connectivism and is it "useful" for the future of education?
I guess it is inevitable really. The whole analogy of the Internet being a "web" has virtually (sic), generated this concept into an actual Thing we can conceive of and utilise for other purposes including the way we learn stuff.
My interpretation, which by no means, have I shared in the discussions with course participants (I'm an outsider looking in at the moment), is that Learning - which is the information one is expected to or naturally acquires, culturally, socially or individually, in order to effectively produce a value-added purpose for existing in the world and bettering it (or not) - has for the past few hundred years or so been a very hierarchical thing. Pump the stuff in and expect the same stuff to be pumped out for future generations and so on.
Connectivism suggests (from my personal observations so far), that learning is now beginning to take on a kind of networked, peer-to-peer quality through discussion, conversation and reciprocated experiential transactions.
It's kind of Socratic actually, although not strictly so. Socratic learning asks questions that lead to other questions that lead to thinking about the subject and further discussions that springboard off from there to more questions and new subjects that circle around back to the original idea. Except, that in this instance there is no actual Socrates himself presiding over the course of discussion and steering it according to his own deliberate and cunning modus operandi.
Whereas Socratic method is reducing things down from a hypothesis to a universal Truth, Connectivism seems to want to deliberately explode the hypothesis into yet a thousand more. Connectivism appears to want to force - naturally that is - learning, to conduit expansively rather than reduce a learning process down a defined pathway to fundamental empirical evidence.
What will this achieve?
Not sure really. It could prove rather confusing in the end. If everyone is everyone else's teacher, who then has the Actual Thing that can be defined? And is that Actual Thing necessary anyway? The debate could be infinite on that last point btw!
When everyone is an expert on everything, nothing can be quantified or qualified. Or so it seems to me. It will be interesting to see if Connectivism as a learning tool does achieve a kind of collective hive-mind consensus on a topic or issue of discussion. It will be interesting indeedy, if ego's can be kept outside of the discussions and those participating can refrain from needing to have their personal opinions exemplified.
The cynic side of me has already assumed that collective learning with no defined structure or hierarchy will be just one big bun-fight with way too many obsessive self interests to be viable over the long term. If anyone does learn something from this, it will be the instigators of the course itself! What they'll learn is probably how to be good bouncers at a rage party!
I am intrigued by this experiment currently being conducted even so. The use of the net as a device for learning is obviously going to become increasingly more valued by our culture, if it isn't already! I myself, am currently doing a tertiary unit of study at an Aussie university via the Internet, so doubting the process is rather silly when I know its already possible and am doing it myself.
The two styles of learning are quite different though. My uni studies are still very much based in traditional concepts of reductionist thinking. Connectivism seems to be somewhat opposed to this process. I could be wrong though on that.
Still, right now, I kind of visualise the whole concept of learning through networking a bit of a confusing jumble of too many ideas with not enough meat on any of them. Like sprinkling salt on the sea.
I also think there might be too many "chiefs" and that the "indians" are all far too interested in making sure THEIR ideas are the best ones (and ergo... are THE 'Chief').
Live and learn though no matter what :)
Friday, September 12, 2008
sense of urgent momentum
Feeling increasingly like I have to burst out and DO something of late.
the intense feeling of needing to change something about my life...particularly what I do for a living... is really pushing from within today.
I currently work in a small cafe during the day. The pay is casual rates so its a bit higher than if I was full-time, but even so, it's barely enough to subsist currently. I quite literally need either another better paying job or I need to find another source of income ASAP.
I have felt for some time that I have something to offer the world in terms of what I can do but I don't yet fully know HOW I can bring it into being.
For one thing, I am convinced its something to do with both writing and the internet. Making money from it is now my focus but HOW?
There's a tonne of advice out there for making money on the internet but most of it is dodgy and silly in the extreme. Those who do succeed at making money from internet enterprises work very very hard in a very very small niche that others have not been able to replicate or do well.
I've yet to discover my particular internet niche where what I do well, (and if I could even come close to knowing exactly what that is...it could be easier, but I don't!), and what I love doing - writing and musing - could bring in some extra income for my family and charitable interests.
But the sensation of a profound PUSH is burbling away inside of me today as if I'm a chrysalis on the verge of some grand awakening. I know its just around the corner. It's there just behind the bend where I can feel its presence but not its face.
WHAT is it that I am going to do?
WHO will I do it with?
The "Why?" is easy. It's my time to break free from being someone else's "slave" and do something that makes my mark on this planet.
yes! I DO want a better income than what I currently have and yes! I believe I actually NEED a better income than what I currently have. I refuse to be locked into a pattern or lifestyle that says "I'm not worth more than this!". My kids are a thousand times more deserving of their Mum making a better than average income than what she's currently earning!
I want to write. I want to be someone who makes a difference. I want my family to push forward into the future with optimism and a powerful sense of being able to DO things that are important without having to stress over the pennies.
I don't want a fancy life style with champagne trimmings, I just want to be in a position where I have leverage to create something better for EVERYONE.
By nature I am generous. I absolutely feel completely and utterly blissfully happy when I can GIVE to others, particularly sharing material things through gift-giving or charitable donations. I love being able to share my resources with those I love and with those things I believe in. It hurts to not be able to do that freely and it has to change! I won't live in a world where I'm not free to be able to give.
Sure! I need to be a lot more savvy about planning for a financially secure future and maybe this current lean phase in my life is teaching me those very lessons. However, it must not last long. I have two teenagers who deserve so much more than a mother feeling "trapped" inside a poverty mindset.
I NEED to break free from it and I need to absolutely find something that builds our lives forward so that my family, my town, my country and my planet all get the reciprocal benefits of me not thinking "small" anymore!
What do you want me to write for you?
Help me make a difference.
the intense feeling of needing to change something about my life...particularly what I do for a living... is really pushing from within today.
I currently work in a small cafe during the day. The pay is casual rates so its a bit higher than if I was full-time, but even so, it's barely enough to subsist currently. I quite literally need either another better paying job or I need to find another source of income ASAP.
I have felt for some time that I have something to offer the world in terms of what I can do but I don't yet fully know HOW I can bring it into being.
For one thing, I am convinced its something to do with both writing and the internet. Making money from it is now my focus but HOW?
There's a tonne of advice out there for making money on the internet but most of it is dodgy and silly in the extreme. Those who do succeed at making money from internet enterprises work very very hard in a very very small niche that others have not been able to replicate or do well.
I've yet to discover my particular internet niche where what I do well, (and if I could even come close to knowing exactly what that is...it could be easier, but I don't!), and what I love doing - writing and musing - could bring in some extra income for my family and charitable interests.
But the sensation of a profound PUSH is burbling away inside of me today as if I'm a chrysalis on the verge of some grand awakening. I know its just around the corner. It's there just behind the bend where I can feel its presence but not its face.
WHAT is it that I am going to do?
WHO will I do it with?
The "Why?" is easy. It's my time to break free from being someone else's "slave" and do something that makes my mark on this planet.
yes! I DO want a better income than what I currently have and yes! I believe I actually NEED a better income than what I currently have. I refuse to be locked into a pattern or lifestyle that says "I'm not worth more than this!". My kids are a thousand times more deserving of their Mum making a better than average income than what she's currently earning!
I want to write. I want to be someone who makes a difference. I want my family to push forward into the future with optimism and a powerful sense of being able to DO things that are important without having to stress over the pennies.
I don't want a fancy life style with champagne trimmings, I just want to be in a position where I have leverage to create something better for EVERYONE.
By nature I am generous. I absolutely feel completely and utterly blissfully happy when I can GIVE to others, particularly sharing material things through gift-giving or charitable donations. I love being able to share my resources with those I love and with those things I believe in. It hurts to not be able to do that freely and it has to change! I won't live in a world where I'm not free to be able to give.
Sure! I need to be a lot more savvy about planning for a financially secure future and maybe this current lean phase in my life is teaching me those very lessons. However, it must not last long. I have two teenagers who deserve so much more than a mother feeling "trapped" inside a poverty mindset.
I NEED to break free from it and I need to absolutely find something that builds our lives forward so that my family, my town, my country and my planet all get the reciprocal benefits of me not thinking "small" anymore!
What do you want me to write for you?
Help me make a difference.
That be my boy!
My son has been drumming since he was able to stand on two legs!
He turned 14 at the end of June this year and...well...yeah... this proud mother thinks he's not too shabby on the skins :)
It's not the sort of track that will shake the world, but mothers are allowed to accept what's not perfect and celebrate that which is wonderful about their kids even so. JD is a good drummer for his age! So there! :)
JD and friends September 2008
He turned 14 at the end of June this year and...well...yeah... this proud mother thinks he's not too shabby on the skins :)
It's not the sort of track that will shake the world, but mothers are allowed to accept what's not perfect and celebrate that which is wonderful about their kids even so. JD is a good drummer for his age! So there! :)
JD and friends September 2008
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