Which one are you?

I found this on Gary Craig's website

Which one are you?

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn't know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.

The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.

Turning to her he asked. "Daughter, what do you see?" "Potatoes, eggs, and coffee," she hastily replied. "Look closer", he said, "and touch the potatoes." She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. "Father, what does this mean?" she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity, the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard. However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new. "Which are you," he asked his daughter."

When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?" In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us. Which one are you?

This story courtesy of http://www.homeholidaysfamilyandfun.com

A love affair

During my first year as depute headteacher in a big primary school in Scotland, I noticed a girl in the infants department. There were three hundred or more children in that department of the school, so “noticing” might be a strange word to use, but I can think of no better word. I “noticed” this girl. She was five years old. Dark hair, quite ordinary-looking, yet something about her drew my attention. Let’s call her F.

During the next three years, I invariably noticed F whenever she was in sight, no matter how many other children were around her. She was growing, like all the other children, but there was nothing exceptional about her appearance.

Then when she was eight or nine years old, she found herself in my class, the class of children I taught all day, every day. I was very excited and interested to have her there. Her presence only, just her being there, lifted my spirits, made the burden of teaching lighter and brought me content. If I took the class for a walk into the countryside, she sometimes held my hand – a great delight for me. But plenty of other children’s’ hands were there that I held from time to time, nine year old children often like to hold their teacher’s hand.

F was very serene. We played a game to teach multiplication tables. It was somewhat competitive and needed a steady nerve. F was not a particularly bright pupil, but she often won that game simply because she never panicked. I found that a very attractive trait.

F’s parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I tried to get to know them, to understand whether F’s upbringing in this faith had had an obviously beneficial effect; but I could make nothing of the Witnesses’ dogma, seemed like nonsense to me.

It happened that a couple, call them B and J, who were friends of ours lived next door to F’s parents and were friendly to them. B found out somehow that I was very interested in F, and when I left that school at the end of the year, and then a year later left teaching altogether and moved away, B and J sometimes visited us where we were living in another part of the country. B took it upon herself to keep me updated as to F’s progress in school and in life generally. We visited B and J in Scotland once, and of course, I popped over to see F and her parents. F was about fifteen years old by that time – how attractive I found her! Just the same slim, quiet, serene girl, but with the bloom of puberty upon her.

Later, during one of B and J’s visits to us, while we were having lunch on the grass on a summer afternoon, B told me quietly that F’s parents had separated. F and her mother had gone to live on the south coast of England. B gave me her address, and told me where she worked - an insurance agency I think it was. It so happened that one summer my work took me to that part of the country, and I got in touch with F to tell her I was there. I had already written to tell her about how I had felt about her when she was in my class – that I had thought her about the most wonderful person in the world (I think those were the exact words I used, and that was true). I sneaked down to the town where she worked early one morning and stood outside the office on the other side of the road, to tell the truth I wasn’t sure if I would recognise her after all these years. But there she was, fully grown but much the same, putting out the milk bottles on the step of the office front door. She didn’t see me, and I went back to work happy.

I arranged to visit her and her mother, and took them out in my car for a ride around the countryside. We stopped, got out and looked at the white figure of a man carved into the hillside hundreds or perhaps thousands of years ago. F was quiet and didn’t have much conversation, but while we were alone for a moment she did tell me that on receiving my letter telling her how I felt about her when she was a little girl, she went upstairs to her room, took out from her drawer the bamboo flute I had helped her make and taught her to play more than ten years ago, sat on her bed and wept.

Back at home, my wife (now my ex-wife) and I discussed the possibility of asking F to come and stay with us for a few days, and as my wife was agreeable (she had met F once or twice years before) I wrote and invited her. F made the long bus journey to our house at the other end of the country. She came with me while I worked, and we took a trip into the Lake District and climbed up a well-known mountain. It was a great pleasure for me. I took her to visit my friend David the potter, a clever, articulate man and fellow of a Cambridge University college, who generously said to her, "Any friend of Malcolm's is a friend of mine."

The evening before she left, we stood outside our front door in the dark and held each other. That was the closest we got to each other. Somehow, the conditions just hadn’t seemed right for more intimate contact. I felt some scruples because she was still a keen Jehovah’s Witness, and I felt that if we had sex together it might make her feel very awkward in the company of her fellow Witnesses, so I had never pressed her. After she left, I sent her a picture of the mountain we had climbed, but I never heard back from her. Later, B told me that she had married a fellow JW. I still have the geode of amethyst she gave me, on the windowsill in front of me.

I now regret not having pushed for sex with her, which I am certain she would have consented to; and I wonder if I was mistaken in attributing to her that degree of innocence. I may have felt, unconsciously, that she and I were not really suited for a life partnership. But I have never forgotten her and often wonder how she is faring in her life. I shall never see her again.

If you, readers, want to tell me whether you think this was a missed opportunity or an escape from disaster, I shall be glad to read your opinions, and I shall take them lightly.

P.S. I have to confess to acute disappointment and tears while remembering this story in order to write it here. Perhaps the greatest disappointment of my life next to the deaths of my children, that circumstances, or my own hesitation, prevented me from consummating this love. It is not surprising I have some heart problems, since I have so often not followed the dictates of my heart.

What thing is love? (2)

I have lifted this bodily off searabbit's blog, without her permission, but I don't think she'll mind because I have seen it somewhere else quite a long time ago. It's a follow-up to my previous "What thing is love?" post.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all even when his hands got arthritis, too. That's Love .
Rebecca - age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving Cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing,you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."
Nikka - age 6

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine - age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you"
Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said:
"Nothing, I just helped him cry."

I like them all but I have to wonder what four-year-old could say "you know your name is safe in their mouth", that just bring the tears to my eyes and everything in me says 'yes' to that. It's the kind of thing I would like to be able to think up, but simply don't have the talent.

A domestic evening

Rose and Claude, July 2005
I took this photo while they were watching TV yesterday evening.

My life's work

I am not an originator. Not a creator. My talent, such as it is, is in seeing what others do not see or do not even look for, and pointing it out. Seeing the connections between things and showing others these connections. This has been my life's work, I only realised this when I was in my forties.

That's my excuse for the large amount of second-hand material on this blog.

A message from Deepak Chopra

I have copied this from the Wild Divine site

Signals from spirit all serve the same purpose: to give you back your life as a creator.

If spirit is sending signals to you, how can you heed them? From a spiritual viewpoint you are always a creator. The tiniest situation in your life is not made “out there” but “in here,” from the source of reality, which is awareness. People who believe that the material world is causing things to happen are simply unconscious creators—they haven’t taken responsibility for being authors of their own lives.

Second attention (a connection with your spirit which attunes you to things your senses cannot grasp) gives you the ability to take authorship of your life, putting you at the center of the daily process of making the reality you perceive. Since all of us are conditioned to believe that nature operates independently of what we think, wish, dream, and feel, reclaiming authorship of our reality is a gradual process that is fostered by our ability to be present to our intentions, moment by moment.

To cultivate your connection to spirit, hold these 5 cardinal beliefs in mind:

1. I am an empty vessel. Inspiration fills me every day, but I am not here to hold onto anything that comes to me.

2. I am here to pass energy from one state to another. Hopefully, I move it from a lower to a higher state, since my purpose is to direct everything toward spirit.

3. I do not have to control the flow of reality, I bend where spirit bids me.

4. The fullness of spirit, not my ego, provides.

5. If I live from the source of creation, only good can come to me. Everything from spirit comes from love.

Getting to these beliefs and making them work for you is a goal that spirit can help you with: Imagine yourself as an empty vessel and let spirit fill you in this—and every— moment.

Love,
Deepak


from the June newsletter of the Wild Divine project

Why the London bombings?

John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, has recently been reported as saying, while talking to an Australian London bomb casualty in hospital:
"Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. This is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of the principles of a great world religion which, at its roots, preaches peace and co-operation," he said.

My question is, is Islam still a "great world religion"? My very intelligent but foolish son, who has converted to Islam, sent me a copy of the Koran, and by reading even a small part of it I have come to understand more about Islamic terrorism than John Howard. How about this quote from the Ayn Rand Institute, which incidentally just about about sums up my view on Islam (Warning - this piece is very politically incorrect!):

The Terrorists' Motivation: Islam

Their attempt to practice religion consistently explains the terrorists' actions.

By Edwin A. Locke

The continued attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West--most recently, the horrific suicide bombings in London--have led many to ask, what is the motivation of the terrorists? Commentators are eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation the terrorists themselves openly proclaim: Islam.

The near silence about the true role of Islam in motivating Islamic terrorists has two main causes: multiculturalism and religion. Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore none may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are therefore reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western culture to Islamic culture. And the strong commitment to religion of many Americans, especially conservatives, makes them reluctant to indict a religion as the cause of a massive evil. But if we are to identify the fundamental cause of the terrorists' actions, we must understand at least two fundamental premises of the religion they kill for.

First, Islam, like all religions, rejects reason as a means of gaining knowledge and guiding action; it holds that all important truths are grasped by faith in supernatural beings and sacred texts. The Koran explicitly states that knowledge comes from revelation, not thinking. (Christianity in pure form entails a similar rejection of reason, but it has been heavily diluted and secularized since the Renaissance.) Islam advocates the subordination of every sphere of life to religious dogma, including the legal system, politics, economics, and family life; the word "Islam" means literally: submission. The individual is not supposed to think independently but to selflessly subordinate himself to the dictates of his religion and its theocratic representatives. We have seen this before in the West--it was called the Dark Ages.

Second, as with any religion that seeks converts, a derivative tenet of Islam is that it should be imposed by force (you cannot persuade someone of the non-rational). The Koran is replete with calls to take up arms in its name: "fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them . . . those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . . . those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads . . . as to the deviators, they are the fuel of hell."

These ideas easily lead to fanaticism and terrorism. In fact, what is often referred to as the "fanaticism" of many Muslims is explicitly endorsed by their religion. Consider the following characteristics of religious fanatics. The fanatic demands unquestioning obedience to religious dogma--so does Islam. The fanatic cannot be reasoned with, because he rejects reason--so does Islam. The fanatic eagerly embraces any call to impose his dogma by force on those who will not adopt it voluntarily--so does Islam.

The terrorists are not "un-Islamic" bandits who have "hijacked a great religion"; they are consistent and serious followers of their religion.

It is true that many Muslims who live in the West (like most Christians) reject religious fanaticism and are law-abiding and even loyal citizens, but this is because they have accepted some Western values, including respect for reason, a belief in individual rights, and the need for a separation between church and state. It is only to the extent that they depart from their religion--and from a society that imposes it--that they achieve prosperity, freedom, and peace.

In the last year, there has been more and more of a call for a "War of Ideas"--an intellectual campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the Arab world that will discourage and discredit Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, the centerpiece of this campaign so far has been to appeal to Muslims with claims that Islam is perfectly consistent with Western ideals, and inconsistent with terrorism. America has groveled to so-called "moderate" Muslim leaders to strongly repudiate terrorism, with little success. (Those leaders have focused little energy on damning Islamic fanaticism, and much on the alleged sins of the US government.) Such a campaign cannot work, since insofar as these "moderates" accept Islam, they cannot convincingly oppose violence in its name. A true "War of Ideas" would be one in which we proclaim loudly and with moral certainty the secular values we stand for: reason, rights, freedom, material prosperity, and personal happiness on this earth.

Edwin A. Locke, a Professor Emeritus of management at the University of Maryland at College Park, is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Ayn Rand Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

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Tokyo Story

I recommend the film "Tokyo Story", director Yasujiro Ozu. I bought it on ebay new and unopened for $12.99 including shipping from Hong Kong and it was the best value film I have ever bought. Rose and I watched it yesterday afternoon and we were both wiping the tears from our eyes from half-way through right up to the end. Here's the blurb from the back of the DVD box:

Yasujiro Ozu's TOKYO STORY follows an ageing couple, Tomi and Shukichi, on their journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in bustling postwar Tokyo. Their reception, however, is disappointing: too busy to entertain them, their children send them off to the hot springs. After Tomi falls ill, she and Shukichi return home; the children, grief-stricken, hasten to be with her. From a simple tale unfolds one of the greatest of all Japanese films. Starring Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, the film reprises one of the director's favorite themes - that of generational conflict - in a way that is quintessentially Japanese, and yet universal in its appeal.

Don't be deceived by the slow start, the black-and-white photography, the fluctuation of brightness. All that is completely irrelevant. I even feel that colour and precision would distract from the story. The dialogue is in Japanese, with subtitles in other languages including English.
For film buffs, it's interesting that the director employs the device of actors looking straight into the camera when they speak. I don't remember noticing this in other films.

What thing is love?

What thing is love? I pray thee, tell.
It is a prickle, it is a sting,
It is a pretty, pretty thing.
It is a fire, it is a coale,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole,
And as my wits can best devise,
Love's darling lies in Ladies' eyes.
(John Bartlet, 1606)

I'vew just been reading someone's blog, it has prompted some thoughts and I want to give expression to these thoughts a moment. I'm always perplexed and a little alarmed by the words "I love you". I find those words hard to say, even to people I do love. The question "Does he love me?" or "Do I love him" - what exactly do these mean? So many agonise over these words. They seem to have something irrevocable about them.

To me, love is not a precipice over which you jump, never to climb back up again. It's not a question of "Has Cupid shot his arrow into me/him/her", but rather, "How many arrows has he shot, what part of the body has been wounded and how virulent is the poison?"

The love I have for my wife is based on different factors: I like her body, the feel of it especially; we have done simple things together, are bringing up a child together, have told each other things, secrets perhaps. She's a good listener. We have one or two interests in common (but a lot not in common.) She's a simple person, I'm more complex and contradictory. I want her to be happy, be active in something she enjoys. She lets me do what I want to do, is quite submissive yet quietly strong.

But many of the same things could be said of my ex-wife. Am I "in love" with her? No. I can say that with certainty. But she has been perhaps my best friend for forty years. Am I "in love" with my present wife? I don't know, I wish I knew what that means, if it's important, as many think it is. She isn't my best friend, I think. We are better suited sexually than my ex and I were, though; yet not ideally. The whole business of love between the sexes is very hard to get clear about. Does anyone have a magic light to throw on the matter?

"Squeak!"

My son Chris is now in his thirties. He’s done well in his profession, and that pleases me very much, especially as it is a vital service (accident and emergency surgery).

When he was about fifteen, or perhaps younger, as we were together in the kitchen one day I suddenly became aware he was no longer a child. I said to him “It seems you are coming to the end of your childhood, Chris.” He looked at me. I went on,“I have so much enjoyed being with you while you have been a child”. I may have said more, to let him know how appreciative I was of his company all those years.

So last night, not to leave it too late, while I was lying down with Claude after putting him to bed, I told him what I had said to Chris, and then I said to him, “My little man – little mouse, I mean” – (he likes me to call him a mouse due to his recent love affair with a captive wild mouse, now on the run again), “I so much appreciate living with you and having your company.”

His face lit up with a glow of pleasure. “Squeak!”, he said.

Try this test if you dare

Smart Ass

I got 16 out of 19 identifications correct! Parts of this test are really difficult, it's only due to my intense interest in the female arse that I scored as highly as that. I'm chagrined I didn't get 100% and I certainly want to know if any readers can get them all right. Click the link below.

Link: The Ass Identification Test written by tall_man_54 on Ok Cupid

Memory prodigy

Thin slice of pi

A Japanese mental health counsellor broke the record for reciting pi from memory in a marathon session this weekend. Akira Haraguchi, 59, recited the number to 83,431 decimal places.

Guardian 03Jul2005

Eleven question which tease me

Some questions for me, and anyone else who likes to express an opinion.

1) It’s virtually certain that other civilisations on other worlds inhabit this galaxy and all the other millions of galaxies in the universe. We hear nothing in Christian or other religious teaching that prepares us for contact with these other civilisations. Has Jesus visited them? Are some of them more advanced than us spiritually, or technologically? Are some less advanced? Probably both. Fundamentalist Christians (and Muslims for that matter) have shown no sign that they have given consideration to how things stand with other civilisations on other worlds vis-à-vis organised religion, e.g. in eschatological matters. I think about this and what a dialogue might be like between a fundamentalist Christian and a visitor from, say, a much more advanced civilisation, spiritually speaking.

2) In the world of Master/slave and Dominant/submissive, how many submissives feel that their journey is a spiritual one?

3) Who made/is making this universe? Possibilities:

a) God the ultimate Higher Power, wielding his infinite might.

b) An incompetent demiurge, wielding his somewhat limited and imperfect powers

c) Humanity, simply using our imagination. If we stop imagining it, it will vanish.

My preference is for the third possibility. I do not admit the blind chance hypothesis, that is altogether too unlikely, not to say impossible.

4) A good education is expensive. Even the best teachers, who provide this education, are not paid enough to enable them to send their children to the best schools (unless they are given a big discount). There is something paradoxical about this situation. So how is a good education to be made available to all who want it?

5) “Energy therapies” ( Spiritual healing, TFT, EFT, Chi gong etc) can work without any consideration of distance, i.e. the therapist can be any distance from the client and it makes no difference, so long as there is some form of “connection” between the two – a photo, a piece of hair, or even an emotional connection of some sort. It follows that the dimension in which these therapies work is not our four-dimensional space-time, but something different. We have to stretch our minds considerably to get them to accommodate this idea.

6) There are people living on this Earth who do not eat, and some do not even drink. Well documented evidence for this exists, and there seem to be many private individuals who do not eat but do not want to publicise this, for obvious reasons. What would happen if a very large number of people, say fifty per cent of the world’s population, learned how to do without food?

7) Astrology has a large following around the world. Superstition? If not, how exactly does the influence of the planets make itself felt on us humans?

8) Why do religious fundamentalists want everyone else to join them? My guess is – insecurity. Subconsciously they know their dogma has a weak foundation, even though it gives them a reason to feel secure, so they seek safety in numbers.

9) Evolution or creationism? My take is that evolution exists – species do evolve; but there are too many instance of behaviour which simply cannot be explained by survival of the fittest: behaviour which cannot be learned gradually, but has to be got right first time. On the other hand, there is simply too much evidence against the idea that the biblical account of creation (itself inconsistent) is historically true. Intelligent design? This brings us back to my third question.

10) Was Jesus an historical figure? I am no biblical scholar, but I go for the idea that his story is a creation of Jewish Gnostics, for spiritual teaching purposes, and through historical accident as much as through power-seeking machinations, it became accepted as historical truth.

11) How did we humans get here? And how did civilisations arise, so suddenly and complete? I like Zechariah Sitchin’s views on this, well backed up by scholarly translations of ancient tablets and other evidence. We are descended from apes, but only as a result of genetic engineering by people from another planet with advanced knowledge and skills. They taught us civilisation: agriculture, kingship, laws, pottery, metallurgy. One snag is – where and what is that other planet?