Category: philosophy

Zumba for the Soul, week 4

Week Four!  We’re back again!

Task One:

Eh.  Three instructions for this week, and the first is to catch fireflies or make snow angels.  Uhhhh…  I don’t know where I could catch fireflies.  I’m not sure it’s even the time of year for fireflies.  And no snow here, bud.35082682316_f7f9615c71_k

image – Bernd Thaller https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernd_thaller/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

I think this one’s a bust.

Task Two: wear all one colour, yellow or purple or blue.

Well, my sis gives me so many cloes that I could probs do this one.  Will go and poke about in my wardrobe and chest of drawers.

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image Vladimer Shioshvilir  https://www.flickr.com/photos/vshioshvili/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Task Three: remember as many Christmas carols as possible.

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image – Nick Amoscato https://www.flickr.com/photos/namoscato/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

…timing much?  Ooookay.  Just remember ’em, though, right?  I don’t have to actually sing?  Because that would be cruel and unusual.  (For everyone around me.)

What I’ve been reading – Happier Than God by Neale Donald Walsch

Happier Than God: Turn Ordinary Life into an Extraordinary ExperienceHappier Than God: Turn Ordinary Life into an Extraordinary Experience by Neale Donald Walsch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a birthday gift to me, which I was a bit bemused by. (Doesn’t everyone interpret books as subliminal messages, given as gifts?) I found it a bit repetitive – the author certainly has a few mantras he leans on heavily, especially the bit about ‘recreating yourself in the grandest version of the greatest vision’ or something like that. A bit gobbledegooky if you ask me. Oh, and the ‘we are all one’. I do have a bit of a problem with that. Because even if it’s true at a higher level, it still doesn’t seem to matter. Don’t you still have to deal with your own personal little-i self, day to day?

I wasn’t exactly infuriated by this book, and I didn’t even disagree with it. I just find all of the Secret-type books inarguable, in the sense that it’s hard to argue with flat assertions that can’t be proven or disproven. It seems to me that any of the experiments they suggest may or may not be borne out by results. And one incident doesn’t prove much. But it does feel as if there’s always some work-around that explains away inconvenient results. Check out p. 183 for that here.

It’s very heavy on the self-promotion – which is fine, actually, except it takes up a lot of space in the book. I can’t quite buy what it’s selling, and maybe that’s why I’m not happier than God yet.

View all my reviews

Random Quest – 11/12/2017

And I meant to get back to this new project straight away!  Oh well, three days, not bad.

To recap from my 08/12/2017 post, then:

In this series, I’ll take a random element – words out of a random word generator online, out of a casually grabbed book, a snatch of conversation on the radio – and interpret them.  Or possibly interpret the results of inputting these few random terms into the searchbox of a website – Twitter or Youtube or any one of a number of others.  Interpret, in the sense of give meaning to them, a nudge from the Universe, a voice in the (tinfoil-hatted) head, a prod between the shoulderblades.

And the words that a roll of the dice – metaphorically – got me, that time?

soup, ant, knee.  And knitting.  I always want to add ‘knitting’.

OK, let’s looka these.  Soup, ant, knee.  Yeah, I love soup, love making soup, love eating soup.  It’s a BIG LOVE.

Ants, ants mean community and hard work to me.

And knee?  Uhhhh…  knees are a fragile, misconceived design flaw in the human body, that tend to start picking up wear and tear and breaking down at 40 or so.

So… I think the Great God Random Word Generator is telling me…  focus on your Big Loves, your Big Big Loves.  Work your arse off, work like an ant works, don’t even pause for breath.  Build community, participate, be glad to do your bit. Remember all things must pass, and you gotta love and appreciate what and who you got, while you got it.  And them.

Then, fling knitting into the mix.  Knitting vids make life better.  So, make life better.  Do it.

image – Linus Bohman https://www.flickr.com/photos/bohman/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/, no modifications

Folks, I present to you my random interpretation of the mysterious messages of the universe, 11/12/2017 style.  /bows low, flourishes.  Boshes a top hat on head, bunny scarpers off stage left.

Random Quest – 08/12/2017

image – Jan (Arny) Messersmith https://www.flickr.com/photos/boogieswithfish/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/, not modified

The inaugural post in an occasional series!  (I was going to call it Random Element, and then I thought no, let’s honour the fantabulous sf short story by John Wyndham.  Excellent, recommended, go forth and read it!)

image – Holly https://www.flickr.com/photos/strangefrontier/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ not modified

In this series, I’ll take a random element – words out of a random word generator online, out of a casually grabbed book, a snatch of conversation on the radio – and interpret them.  Or possibly interpret the results of inputting these few random terms into the searchbox of a website – Twitter or Youtube or any one of a number of others.  Interpret, in the sense of give meaning to them, a nudge from the Universe, a voice in the (tinfoil-hatted) head, a prod between the shoulderblades.

image – John Keogh https://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/, not modified

Hey, it’s every bit as valid as friggin’ astrology, ‘kay?  And it keeps me amused, out of trouble and off the streets.  Where’s the bad?

Today’s random quest – soup, ant, knee.  And knitting.  I always want to add ‘knitting’.