Posted on 13 Aug, 2009 -
Orange, toffee, coffee, raisin, maltesers and chocolate
* As I’m feeling bored of the sound of my own voice this week, I am stepping aside to let some of my eloquent readers write instead
* One for each of the six flavours in a bag of Revels!
* Including: A life-enhancing poem… an artist’s top 9 tips… an instant recipe for feeling happier… and why you shouldn’t save paper!
The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard once said (I don’t know whether he completely believed it) that boredom is the root of all evil. “This can be traced back,” he said “to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.”
An interesting thought but a little negative in attitude I feel! Personally I would prefer to see boredom as the reverse side of the desire that drives us as human beings to such extravagances of wonder, of achievement and creativity.
This week, however, I am not taking any chances. Writing this email once a week may not seem too great a task but there are times like today when I just want to say “Oh shut up Wendy!”.
And for one week only, at least for the moment, I am going to give myself the pleasure of obeying that order. So, with no further waffling from me, I would like to pass you over to six different messages from 6 different flavours of Life is a Bag of Revels readers:
Tangy Orange: Trust the voice inside you that calls you to higher things
First of all, these inspiring words from Maxine:
“Do you have untapped resources? A force inside like a voice calling you to higher things? You may surprise yourself as you felt, on the shelf not wanted or needed.
Love can be so many things, romantic idyllic unobtainable, or practical caring supportive. Step out into the world and touch the needy, lonely and sick with a heart so full of love. You know it’s better to give than to receive, shine your light in the world as Jesus did! Blessings will be upon you!
A butterfly is in your hand, its wings are beating, desperate for freedom.
Be careful what you wish for. It isn’t always right as you will find the path to heaven is littered with broken hearts promises, needs not met, disappointments loss and hurts.
Let the butterfly go and it will soar into the sky. Imagine that it is your aspirations released into the world - but try to steer yourself on the right path, like a flight controller of a plane!”
Healthy Raisin: 9 tips for strength, confidence and personal success from artist Denis Maguire
Artist and former sportsman Denis Maguire wrote to me recently saying that he has a number of rituals he uses throughout the day to help him through life. Some of these rituals, he says, came from sports training at the top of the field but are equally motivating for whatever you do in life.
Why not give them a try!
1.Breathe in through the nose and hold for 2 seconds. It stimulates the brain.
2. Visualisation is related to strong emotions like enthusiasm and desire. I visualised me winning matches and still do today!
3. Negativity creates diseases. When these thoughts come replace them with positive thoughts and some of your magical moments.
4. You are who you think you are - I am Denis Maguire and what more can I say!.When people say to me who do you think you are? I love to say Denis Maguire and you’ll hear of me sooner than you think. I tell young kids that!
5. Repetition is the key to integrating new habits into your behaviour.
6. Before going to sleep, visualize ‘writing the problem’ on the black board. Step back and read it a few times and then imagine a solution appearing on the white board the following day.
7. Your subconscious does not differentiate between what is real and unreal. If you visualize an event with a positive outcome, your subconscious will be forced to conform to that image and make the necessary changes.
8. Your thoughts are your destiny, so always think positive and big.
9. List your goals and imagine/visualise achieving them.
Simple chocolate: YOU GET WHAT YOU LOOK FOR
I loved this little anecdote sent in by Carla that perfectly illustrates the idea that you get what you are looking for in life:
“A couple were looking around an area they were thinking of moving to. They stopped and chatted to a local. `So, what kind of people are they where you come from?’ he asked. `Mean, noisy, nosy, that’s why we want to leave.’ they replied. `Well, they are like that here too’ the local replied.
Another couple, same scenario talking to same chap in reply to first question replied `Nice, easy to get on with, happy’ and his response was again, `Well they are like that here too’.
You will find what you seek.”
A chewy toffee of an idea: Is using less paper actually WORSE for the environment?
This is a very different idea that I found thought-provoking and certainly worthy of inclusion here. It is the idea that by reducing our use of paper we are actually putting the environment at MORE danger.
Here’s what reader, B. had to say:
“Trees are grown specifically for paper making. If people do not buy paper, the trees will not be planted. As trees have this magnificent ability of photosynthesis, to take in harmful CO2 (carbon Dioxide gas) and give out life-giving Oxygen in return, they are actually wonderful for the planet. In fact without them, we as humans, and the world would not survive. There are millions of trees planted and harvested each year for the paper industry world-wide, in fact so many that if paper use drops significantly; then the number of trees in the world will also drop significantly, thus less of the harmful CO2 gas will be absorbed. As CO2 is a damager to the Ozone layer - where we keep having ‘holes’ appearing; this in turn contributes to the so called ‘Global warming’. Therefore as we all want to help the planet, I urge everyone to stop telling people NOT to print their emails. All you are really encouraging is more global warming! Please think about it - Everyone that uses this strap line on their emails appear to be saying exactly the opposite of what they want to encourage! What you should really be saying is: ‘Consider of the environment, print this and encourage more trees to be planted’! Paper being a product made from natural material, readily breaks down organically, as well as being recyclable.
I urge everyone to do research photosynthesis, instead of backing the very short thinking ‘save a tree (ruin the planet)’ campaign.
I think it would be good for the ‘powers that be’ to carefully consider the messages that are being sent out to people, otherwise at sometime in the future the truth will hit everyone; but we will be cinders then I suppose!”
Wake up and smell the Coffee: A handy little reminder
Another reader wrote in recently in response to my article that included details of the suffering of concentration camp victims during the holocaust.
“Just wanted to say” she wrote, “that I remember a saying my late Mother use to say to me when I grumbled about something. She said ‘If your shoes hurt, don’t grumble because there are some folk with no legs.’’
She also told me in her letter that her husband had worked with a group of survivors from Auschwitz who had never spoken of their ordeal. When the last one of them died recently, however, they had been told that he had suffered all his life with a metal plate in his head from an injury systained from the butt of a guards rifle.
It is true that we do always have so much to be grateful for and there are always others worse off than us…
Malty Malteasers: Read poetry and literature to get back in touch with the deep poetic wonder of even the most mundane moments of living
For more than two thousand years, says John, people have known that reading fiction is good for you.
Aristotle, for example, claimed that great literature like that of Homer or Aeschylus is a more serious business than history. History, he argued, tells us only what has happened, whereas fiction tells us what can happen. It prepares us for the moral maze of life and gives us a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
“Whenever I’m feeling that life is too mundane” says John, “I pick up a book of favourite poems to get back in touch with the poetry and depth of every day we spend, every breath we breathe and every scene we see in front of us. There is also few better foods for the soul than a good novel.”
Each of us, of course, will have their own tastes in literature so there is no point in making recommendations here. As John mentioned a favourite poem, however, that is also a favourite of mine, I have decided to leave you with that now:
T.S. Eliot’s Preludes
I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimneypots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That times resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.
III
You tossed a blanket from the bed
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.
IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
