me and Pam: a New Year project, Week One, Day One

image – Inga Vitola https://www.flickr.com/photos/360around/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

ETA: urkle.  didn’t know what a slimy nasty creeptwunt Pam Grout was at this point.  #horriblepeople 

I got Pam Grout’s new book, ‘Art and Soul, Reloaded‘ for Christmas.  Lucky me!  And since it’s structured in the form of weekly projects, I figure I will make a serious stab at them, and at finishing them by next New Year.  Gotta try, right?

The first week’s project, as advised by Ms. Grout, is simply to log amount of time spent on social media for the week.  Then to cut it in half, and spend the freed-up time on creative pursuits instead.  And in addition, to come up with three new ideas a day.  No matter how ridiculous!

Well, we’re already halfway through the week.  So I’ll come up with my best estimate of the time I waste daily – say two hours.  And, yes, make an effort to cut it down.

And today’s three ideas?

i) write a Gothic novel summary with a clown as the hero

ii) decorate a mug to celebrate a national holiday that doesn’t exist

iii) build a ladybug house.

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

Happier 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 – 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’.

 

hello darkness*

http://rcdow.org.uk/vocations/blog/a-novena-for-peace-and-renewal/

This is one of the first page results I got from a random-word Google search today.  It’s the one that sprung out immediately and caught the eye on the page, although not the first result as such.  Interesting, huh?  Got to admit, I’m always picking up signs and interpreting messages.  I blame Pam Grout.

This, though?

Sometimes, the universe just needs a kick.

 

Image – Alex Antropov https://www.flickr.com/photos/51686021@N07/ licence https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

*ya know where it comes from.  you oughtta.

 

 

look what you made us do

During prayer today – yeah, I pray, the full on-yer-knees-eyes-closed-surrender-to-the-universe procedure – I was asking for lovable people in my life. (I got lovable peeps already. But who couldn’t use a few more?)

And the answer I got back –

(Yeah, I get answers back when I pray. I talk to God all the time. Me and the big guy, we’re like that.)

What? Oh yeah, the answer. What the Holy Dude whispered in my ear – quiet, subtle, only slightly snippy – was, ‘Everyone is lovable. Not a soul will be counted irredeemable, in the final weighing-in. Love all of them.’

Damn.

But fine. Fine. God is so annoying when he’s… right.

I’ll get right on that, then. Loving each and every little fucker – ahem, each radiant soul – that I encounter on a daily basis. No matter what. No matter what.

I’ll love those little fuckers into the ground.

 

Image allenran 917 on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/allenran917/ under a Creative Commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/