LastThursday

Who is this God character I keep hearing about on this forum? What does s/he want? Who's s/he related to?

Every edifice needs foundations. How else does it stay upright? That is logical. But what keeps the ground in place? Turtles.

I've never really been that good at painting my nails. Ha! That got your attention. Have I really run out of spiritual topics to talk about? Don't know. I'm in an anecdotal phase of my journal. Storytelling is an important skill to have for small talk. More about small talk in the next episode. A number of years ago I took up the quaint British custom of Morris dancing. Even in the UK it is somewhat obscure and derided. The part most often derided is all that prancing around and handkerchief waving - technically Cotswold Morris dancing. As with anything there are different divisions and flavours in Morris dancing. I took up Morris dancing for the same reason I took up smoking, to get closer to and impress a member of the opposing sex. As it would turn out it got me nowhere (as with the smoking), but, nevertheless I had immense fun Morris dancing for a year. I used a sawn off pick axe handle instead of a handkerchief, much more manly. What I really loved about Morris dancing was not the actual dancing itself (it took me forever to master the steps), but all the beer drinking, dressing up, the theatricality of it, travelling to different venues, camping and being outdoors, music, communal atmosphere and crowds. So quite a lot of things. I was absolutely gutted when I had to give it up, things turned sour with the woman I was trying to be in love with. Oh well. Part of the attraction was dressing up. I've always enjoyed putting on a costume and being someone else for a while. Humans mostly being visual creatures they're greatly affected by uniforms, suits, costumes and hi-viz jackets. It's supremely ridiculous if you think about it. Why should you treat someone in a police uniform any different than someone in drag? Anyway, my Morris costume was all black: black boots, black jeans, black overcoat with reams of material attached in a kind of Christmas tree effect (you had to be there), black sunglasses, and perhaps most controversially blacked up face (not neck or hands). The blacked up face has nothing to do with racism and a lot to do with Welsh coal miners working down pits and having coal stained faces - historical reasons. And for the topic of this post, also painted black nails. That style of Morris dancing is called Border, i.e. Welsh border. Even in our men's side (troupe), there was contention on whether to paint our nails or not. For some it was off limits, I and a few others thought it was all part of the show. I was always terrible at painting my nails. But it was fine, the effect wasn't supposed to be perfect, but more of a look, it wasn't a fashion parade. That's not to say I hadn't had practice before. I have variously painted the nails of previous exes (females), because, I presume they also had trouble painting their nails. It's worse with mid-tone colours, as any streaks or blobs will show immediately and indelibly. Although two coats is de-rigeur for nails. I don't do French nails, go see a specialist! I do sometimes wish men could just paint their nails as part of an outfit, and not be ridiculed. Why not? I also grew up in the 80's and male eye liner was everywhere in pop. I also wish I could get away with eyeliner on occasion. Maybe there'll be a decade in future where all this is perfectly acceptable, but I'll be old and wrinkly by then and only the youngsters will be allowed to have the latest fashion. Sigh.

Sometimes life throws a monkey wrench in the works. You're happily tootling along and bam! Nothing is ever the same again. Other times you can see the wrecking ball hurtling towards you, but you refuse to budge out of your comfort zone, the fear is just too much. Yet again, the slime monster may creep ever so slowly, over months and years until it engulfs you and there's nothing for it, you just have to escape its deadly embrace at all costs. Change happens. Shit happens. In the end you learn nothing, because every type of change is different and unique. What you do is become philosophical about it. You weather the storm of change and then shrug your shoulders and get on with the new normal. You learn that resistance is futile and counterproductive. You learn that nothing really lasts forever. Your learn that being overly attached to anything is asking for trouble. Ok, you do learn something, I admit. But it's all very meta and vague. Try telling your teenaged daughter that they will eventually get over that holiday romance. Try telling yourself that you'll eventually come to terms with the loss of a parent. Try looking back at the train wreck of a relationship that you kept going out of a duty of who knows what. Try not being emotional in the moment of change or resentful about the past. Try undoing the feelings of being trapped in a job you don't care about. Try and keep on loving the very people who have unconsciously hurt you in the past. It takes a very stoic and detached and self-loving person to weather every type of change and to accept being changed by circumstances out of our control. It's nearly impossible, but it's a very human predicament. Be gentle on yourself, acknowledge your frailty, acknowledge you don't what you're doing, acknowledge that the pain will eventually go away - even that doesn't last forever.

Note to self: this time I have something to say, hooray. I was chatting to my sister recently. We have reconnected recently and I'm grateful for it. She was recounting how she had difficulties in reading English when we moved back to England and how she felt stupid because of it. By my reckoning she was only four years old, sheesh, she didn't need to be so hard on herself. In turn, I recounted how I don't have any recollection at all of the process of learning English (I was six). By all accounts I picked up fluency fairly rapidly, and I could already read Spanish, so reading in English wasn't problematic. I do occasionally remember that a part of me is Spanish, both culturally and intrinsically. You didn't know that you could be a culture did you? For me, listening to Spanish feels normal, even if my comprehension has never been 100%. There is so much crossover in vocabulary with English and Spanish, that I would say my comprehension has increased as an adult by sheer learning of vocabulary in English. It's good to sometimes rehydrate a part of myself I neglect. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that to be happy and fulfilled every part of you needs to be nurtured and fed. Even the bad parts have to be acknowledged and put into their correct perspective. To that end I indulge some Spanish on YouTube. The following two fulfill different needs: Just general grammar, explained slowly and clearly, and she has a typical mainland Spanish humour I vibe with: And for storytelling and for having feet in two cultures, which I grok. She also speaks rapidly and South American, so it's good practice for my ears. Here she recounts her struggles in learning Spanish, the opposite situation to mine:

@Emerald ??? @IAmReallyImportant there is a button. But that would be off topic.

Note to self. Don't write a post if there's nothing to say. At times I hit a nexus. My head is so full of stuff flitting in and out, that I never get bored. I could literally sit here with my favourite toy (yes yes my laptop, no it's not inflatable) and engage with my thoughts the whole day. In fact I do that on weekends more often that I would like to: pandemic be gone! The thing is, all that swirling about in my head gets tiring and my body insists on a break. So what happens? Nothing. I just sit there - so no physical change - but I also do nothing, the thoughts come and go and I just sit. I don't really like it. Actually, the thoughts don't really like it, I'm fine. I have actually mastered the art of not thinking at all, zero thoughts. It's a bit like being asleep awake. The most pleasant time to have no thoughts is on a walk, where I actually pay attention to my surroundings and re-engage with reality. It doesn't last though, thoughts are far more sexy than reality. That's why I go on this forum; to use the quaint phrase: mental masturbation. It's a shame there's no thoughtgasm at the end of it. Note to self. Why did I use the word nexus? Should have been hiatus. Nexus Hiatus, sounds like a Roman soldier or a disease.

@tatsumaru I strongly resonate with your struggle. It's a constant fight against my own tendencies to just want do what the hell I want without being restricted. Even typing now on this forum, I should be working, I have a pile of work. The only way I've found to live with it, is to surrender to my need for freedom regularly. So on occasion I say f**k it and go for a drive or have an afternoon nap or whatever I feel like doing in the moment. It's a kind of nervous energy I need to go with. Sometimes I suffer paralysis, where I want to go and be free, but I force myself to try and be disciplined - it's stressful and time wasting. When I need to be disciplined I do it in short spurts, or I try and install routine, especially around sleep/waking up and eating. My logical brain knows that if I want bigger freedoms, I need to give up the smaller freedoms - that gives me just about enough motivation to be an adult, feed myself, wash myself and successfully hold down a full time job. But sometimes the restriction is just too much and I'll simply give up all routine or discipline, knowing that it will pass. I can really understand how people with stronger mental health problems find it impossible to get any traction in their lives - to get stuff done. If I really examine it, the sense of restriction comes from three places: other people's expectations of me, the needs of survival and my own thoughts and emotions. It's actually possible to tell most people to politely f**k off and stop bothering me - but don't expect them to be friendly. Survival can be slimmed down to its bare essentials (aka minimalism). And to balance my thoughts I can set up helpful habits and routines. Back to work.

Infinity can be what it likes. If you have an infinite chequerboard, then it clearly repeats. If you start counting from 1, it clearly never repeats. Infinity doesn't have one definition other than it's ubounded in some way. If you're talking about the infinity of reality itself, then quite clearly it repeats. It just repeats in a chaotic way. Repetition is the basis of recognition. If infinity (reality) didn't repeat then you wouldn't recognise your own mother.

That's the understatement of the century. Before 2000 accessibility was in the dark ages, no scrub that, stone age. Nostalgia is very selective however. So many times, especially with music, I'll stumble across a song I've forgotten completely. And then I'm nostalgic about it! Ridiculous. To be honest, you'd expect greater nostalgia in us old(er) folk, just by sheer quantity of stuff to be nostalgic about. I must admit I find your OP about being nostalgic in your early twenties surprising - surely this must be the effect of technology?

How is that different form a conventional relationship with a human?

@Someone here cool, but is nihilism really about individualism? I'm not so sure, I sense a bias here. Nihilism just understands that there is nothing objective about anything at all; if objective is a synonym for truth. After all truth means something. In the end everything is just collapsed into zero. Because, for example, if morality is meaningless then what else is meaningless? And on it goes, it gnaws away at everything, including itself. If a person or a group decide to create meaning, then what is the source of that meaning? How does meaning bootstrap itself from meaninglessness? Nihilism fails to account for this.

Nihilists and comedians are quite similar. They both poke fun at meaning. Comedians do it to subvert, nihilists do it to transcend. But does nihilism itself mean anything? Surely meaning exists right, even if meaning is always invented?

Resonance This is vaguely reminiscent of one of the chapters in Lyall Watson's book Supernature. I can't remember what sort of proto-New Age stuff he actually talked about, but regardless I loved that book. So I'm styling myself after him. My given name has always been a source of awkwardness for me. It's Spanish and relatively rare in Spain at any rate. Of course the English (yes me included) being who they are tend to mangle any name that doesn't fit their phonology or spelling rules. Mine is exceptional. If you like detective work, then search my journal and enjoy! Early on my English grandfather nicknamed me Gil (hard G). It's understandable to a degree, it fits the English convention and it's short and snappy. My Mum always hated the nickname, but even she contracted my name, and even now I sign off emails using the contracted version. The contraction is not official Spanish however. My Dad had completely different ideas calling me various nicknames related to William (the Anglo version of my name). Wink, and Winkle being the two most common and very British humour. Of course my sister was Twink or Twinkle to match. I think his word play has passed down to his son, although my humour is more highbrow (sorry Dad, lol). Of course historically William and Willhelm are Germanic names, the Spanish version I have comes from this source and is actually mangled by Spaniards to fit their phonology. Specifically the W glide doesn't exist in Spanish. Irony. Of course there have been a huge number of bastardised spoken variations that I got called throughout time. Phonetically (hard G): Gilier, Gills, Guilbert, Gideon, Giyen, Gilly (reminds me of G.O.T.) and so on nearly ad-infinitum. Because of this I can tell from which period of my life someone has known me. Naturally, there are a few clued up individuals who realised that I might actually enjoy being called by my actual name, and I applaud them for getting close, but they are very few. What finally happened is that I gave up and started introducing myself as Gil. Despite, like my Mum, not really liking it that much. But like a trained dog I answer to that name now. Woof. Sadly, even my own father calls me that now, despite being able to actually speak Spanish and say my given name quite adequately. Why is it the English are so awkward with names? I'm named after my English grandfather. Oddly, my dad has his dad's name also. Go figure. All this says that because of a lack of resonance, my given name has never stuck. I sort of like the variety. Resonance II Who do you notice? Pre pandemic when I use to stroll into work each morning, I would notice the same people. Familiar strangers. I'm sure there were a bunch of people that I didn't notice but were regulars also. And that's the point, there is something about certain people that somehow resonate with your attention. A different view is that of impedance matching which comes from audio technology. When you plug two things together you need their impedances (a kind of A.C. resistance) to match. Otherwise, you don't get good sound, the electrical energy isn't transferred as well as it could be. This is the same with people. You will impedance match them on different aspects and levels. Maybe it's appearance, or shared history, similar outlooks, senses of humour, or even familial connections: they even could be your sister. Maybe they hit your attention bone in other ways, for whatever myriad and probably unconscious reasons. I certainly resonate with a number of regulars on this forum. I won't name and shame them for fear of inflating or deflating their egos. But I will say I greatly appreciate everything they put out there. There's a great amount of vulnerability and intelligence being expressed: two things I resonate well with. And I'm constantly surprised by you. Who doesn't like surprise?

@intotheblack have a read of Machines Like Me (Ian McEwan). It's a about a couple and an affair with an android.

Good contemplations. I wouldn't say misunderstanding, just perspective. Love isn't given, it is love within yourself that is triggered or reflected by others. But that doesn't make it any less or fake. What more beatiful thing is there than to set off love inside another person?

Don't worry you're going to be ok:

This is a good philosphical question. Do you really love the person, or do you love the impression of a person? Was it just your fantasy you loved all along? Could you keep on loving an android with one less finger? Questions. Can you keep on loving a person even if they change? Can you keep on loving a person even if an unpalatable truth comes out? How do you know if a person really loves you? Is it just behaviour or does there have to be intent? How do you know someone's intent?

I fell in love with a thought, And then the thought fell in love with me, Wild and feral it tore me up, Gnashing teeth and blood, I cried in anguish, Unable to contain my orgasm, The thought pushed forth, Again and again and again, I pushed and pulled, This way, that way, Until I could fight no more, Fearsome love, Fearsome devil, Fearsome body, That animal thought screamed, Then all was silent, Surrendered, I lay there bleeding, Injured and ravaged: By the tooth and claw of thought, Now, an expanding wave of emptiness, Overtook what I had thought was myself, Until even memory was not enough to hold on to, Thought left. I left.

@Barbara yes exactly. To be authentic is to be a whole person and for all the parts to work in harmony together, even the ugly parts. When you are learning to be authentic, you have to push against all those inauthentic ugly parts - like a rebellious teenager pushing against their parents' wishes, until you realise your parents were right.

Indeed, isn't that the definition of holistic?

I really don't want to throw water on the fire; we are always being authentic. The transcendence is to realise that we can never be anything else but ourselves in every moment. Acceptance.

@Null Simplex don't be so lazy! Don't you know you have to grab life by the horns? Go go go...

I would say the nostalgia comes and goes. I watched a huge amount of TV as a kid and teenager. Luckily, they have channels nowadays full of all those old shows. It's fun to indulge sometimes and watch an episode or two, it's like seeing an old friend! Saying that, I wasn't at all nostalgic in my twenties and thirties I was too distracted by living. To be honest a lot of my teenagehood actually sucked, that I've never been nostalgic about.

I was out on a walk this morning. For a reason only the gods know, I woke up about an hour and half earlier than normal. There was nothing for it other than to go for a walk. In the end it was about an hour and half of wending around town. It is a beautiful morning here, warm in the sunshine with fluffy clouds floating in a cyan sky. I think because it's nearly spring the flowers are out. Especially, I've noticed just how many cherry trees there are here. There's a beauty to the dense delicate pastel pink blossoms against the near black of the branches. I should mentally note where they are and one day take a meandering tour and connect the dots, the cherry tree walk so to speak. As I was walking I was thinking about all the things that have come and gone in my life. There's an ebb and flow to things just like the waves lapping up on a beach. Sometimes, as when someone we love passes away, we mark the coming and going formally with ceremony and dressing up. At other times we hardly even pay attention. What about all those people we've met in passing and forgotten until now? What about all those hot summers and crisp winters? What about those old school days? I absent mindedly started to reel off some of the things that have come and gone, feeling that in that moment of sunniness and lightness it would be the right time to do so. Those few years in Spain as a kid with it's endless sunshine and heat - came and went. Before that the place in Hampstead which my mum indelicately called "The House of Rats" - came and went. My first two schools in Spain, infants in England and then juniors, secondary school, sixth form and university - came and went. Many many people came and went, all my best friends Candy, John and Bayo and Lee, Danny, Kieran and my teenage love Elaine, Mohammed and Peter and Sai and Tehmina, my adult loves Susanne and Mariska. My nuclear family formed and dispersed. Over 17,000 sunrises and sunsets - came and went. The 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, 10's, all of them. In the reverie I also felt emotions ebb and flow, melancholy, nostalgia, relief, catharsis and closure, letting go. My walk ended. I suddenly realised that some of those strands of life had started but were yet still to finish - I was living them now. In the end I myself would come and go, born and die; and that's ok.