I may begin blogging again

 Then again, I may be tired of being on the computer all day long but we will see. I signed up for a course through my library and we will see how it goes. But, I just got back into my blog so that is a start. 

updated July 2021

I guess I really don't like blogggggging anymore. 

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all (late MIL)."

"I am not resigned ...

"I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson (George Eliot)."

Nothing to say

Haiku posting.

I spend a lot of time searching where They moved radio buttons.

I love my children.

PURPLE RAIN EPIC LIVE FINALE WITH INSANE GUITAR SOLO - Prince and the Re...

Purple Rain Epic Live Finale with Insane Guitar Solor--Prince and the Revolution 1985

"Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself

Project Gutenberg's Essays, First Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

XII. ART.

"Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but
in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This
appears in works both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the
popular distinction of works according to their aim either at use or
beauty. Thus in our fine arts, not imitation but creation is the aim. In
landscapes the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation
than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit and give
us only the spirit and splendor. He should know that the landscape has
beauty for his eye because it expresses a thought which is to him good;
and this because the same power which sees through his eyes is seen in
that spectacle; and he will come to value the expression of nature and
not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy the features that please
him. He will give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine. In a
portrait he must inscribe the character and not the features, and must
esteem the man who sits to him as himself only an imperfect picture or
likeness of the aspiring original within.

"What is that abridgment and selection we observe in all spiritual
activity, but itself the creative impulse? for it is the inlet of that
higher illumination which teaches to convey a larger sense by simpler
symbols. What is a man but nature's finer success in self-explication?
What is a man but a finer and compacter landscape than the horizon
figures,--nature's eclecticism? and what is his speech, his love of
painting, love of nature, but a still finer success,--all the weary
miles and tons of space and bulk left out, and the spirit or moral of
it contracted into a musical word, or the most cunning stroke of the
pencil?

"But the artist must employ the symbols in use in his day and nation
to convey his enlarged sense to his fellow-men. Thus the new in art
is always formed out of the old. The Genius of the Hour sets his
ineffaceable seal on the work and gives it an inexpressible charm
for the imagination. As far as the spiritual character of the period
overpowers the artist and finds expression in his work, so far it will
retain a certain grandeur, and will represent to future beholders the
Unknown, the Inevitable, the Divine. No man can quite exclude this
element of Necessity from his labor. No man can quite emancipate himself
from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education,
the religion, the politics, usages and arts of his times shall have no
share. Though he were never so original, never so wilful and fantastic,
he cannot wipe out of his work every trace of the thoughts amidst which
it grew. The very avoidance betrays the usage he avoids. Above his will
and out of his sight he is necessitated by the air he breathes and the
idea on which he and his contemporaries live and toil, to share the
manner of his times, without knowing what that manner is. Now that which
is inevitable in the work has a higher charm than individual talent can
ever give, inasmuch as the artist's pen or chisel seems to have been
held and guided by a gigantic hand to inscribe a line in the history
of the human race. This circumstance gives a value to the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, to the Indian, Chinese and Mexican idols, however gross
and shapeless. They denote the height of the human soul in that hour,
and were not fantastic, but sprung from a necessity as deep as the
world. Shall I now add that the whole extant product of the plastic
arts has herein its highest value, as history; as a stroke drawn in
the portrait of that fate, perfect and beautiful, according to whose
ordinations all beings advance to their beatitude?

"Thus, historically viewed, it has been the office of art to educate the
perception of beauty. We are immersed in beauty, but our eyes have no
clear vision. It needs, by the exhibition of single traits, to assist
and lead the dormant taste. We carve and paint, or we behold what is
carved and painted, as students of the mystery of Form. The virtue of
art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing
variety. Until one thing comes out from the connection of things, there
can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought. Our happiness and
unhappiness are unproductive. The infant lies in a pleasing trance, but
his individual character and his practical power depend on his daily
progress in the separation of things, and dealing with one at a time.
Love and all the passions concentrate all existence around a single
form. It is the habit of certain minds to give an all-excluding fulness
to the object, the thought, the word, they alight upon, and to make
that for the time the deputy of the world. These are the artists, the
orators, the leaders of society. The power to detach and to magnify by
detaching is the essence of rhetoric in the hands of the orator and
the poet. This rhetoric, or power to fix the momentary eminency of an
object,--so remarkable in Burke, in Byron, in Carlyle,--the painter and
sculptor exhibit in color and in stone. The power depends on the depth
of the artist's insight of that object he contemplates. For every object
has its roots in central nature, and may of course be so exhibited to us
as to represent the world. Therefore each work of genius is the tyrant
of the hour And concentrates attention on itself. For the time, it is
the only thing worth naming to do that,--be it a sonnet, an opera, a
landscape, a statue, an oration, the plan of a temple, of a campaign, or
of a voyage of discovery. Presently we pass to some other object, which
rounds itself into a whole as did the first; for example a well-laid
garden; and nothing seems worth doing but the laying out of gardens. I
should think fire the best thing in the world, if I were not acquainted
with air, and water, and earth. For it is the right and property of
all natural objects, of all genuine talents, of all native properties
whatsoever, to be for their moment the top of the world. A squirrel
leaping from bough to bough and making the Wood but one wide tree
for his pleasure, fills the eye not less than a lion,--is beautiful,
self-sufficing, and stands then and there for nature. A good ballad
draws my ear and heart whilst I listen, as much as an epic has done
before. A dog, drawn by a master, or a litter of pigs, satisfies and is
a reality not less than the frescoes of Angelo. From this succession
of excellent objects we learn at last the immensity of the world,
the opulence of human nature, which can run out to infinitude in any
direction. But I also learn that what astonished and fascinated me in
the first work astonished me in the second work also; that excellence of
all things is one.

"The office of painting and sculpture seems to be merely initial. The
best pictures can easily tell us their last secret. The best pictures
are rude draughts of a few of the miraculous dots and lines and dyes
which make up the ever-changing "landscape with figures" amidst which
we dwell. Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs.
When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, to
grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting
teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as
I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless
opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free
to choose out of the possible forms. If he can draw every thing, why
draw any thing? and then is my eye opened to the eternal picture which
nature paints in the street, with moving men and children, beggars and
fine ladies, draped in red and green and blue and gray; long-haired,
grizzled, white-faced, black-faced, wrinkled, giant, dwarf, expanded,
elfish,--capped and based by heaven, earth and sea.

"A gallery of sculpture teaches more austerely the same lesson. As
picture teaches the coloring, so sculpture the anatomy of form. When
I have seen fine statues and afterwards enter a public assembly, I
understand well what he meant who said, "When I have been reading Homer,
all men look like giants." I too see that painting and sculpture are
gymnastics of the eye, its training to the niceties and curiosities of
its function. There is no statue like this living man, with his infinite
advantage over all ideal sculpture, of perpetual variety. What a gallery
of art have I here! No mannerist made these varied groups and diverse
original single figures. Here is the artist himself improvising, grim
and glad, at his block. Now one thought strikes him, now another, and
with each moment he alters the whole air, attitude and expression of his
clay. Away with your nonsense of oil and easels, of marble and chisels;
except to open your eyes to the masteries of eternal art, they are
hypocritical rubbish.

"The reference of all production at last to an aboriginal Power explains
the traits common to all works of the highest art,--that they are
universally intelligible; that they restore to us the simplest states
of mind, and are religious. Since what skill is therein shown is the
reappearance of the original soul, a jet of pure light, it should
produce a similar impression to that made by natural objects. In happy
hours, nature appears to us one with art; art perfected,--the work of
genius. And the individual, in whom simple tastes and susceptibility to
all the great human influences overpower the accidents of a local and
special culture, is the best critic of art. Though we travel the world
over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
The best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces, in outlines,
or rules of art can ever teach, namely a radiation from the work of art
of human character,--a wonderful expression through stone, or canvas, or
musical sound, of the deepest and simplest attributes of our nature,
and therefore most intelligible at last to those souls which have these
attributes. In the sculptures of the Greeks, in the masonry of the
Romans, and in the pictures of the Tuscan and Venetian masters, the
highest charm is the universal language they speak. A confession of
moral nature, of purity, love, and hope, breathes from them all. That
which we carry to them, the same we bring back more fairly illustrated
in the memory. The traveller who visits the Vatican, and passes from
chamber to chamber through galleries of statues, vases, sarcophagi and
candelabra, through all forms of beauty cut in the richest materials,
is in danger of forgetting the simplicity of the principles out of which
they all sprung, and that they had their origin from thoughts and laws
in his own breast. He studies the technical rules on these wonderful
remains, but forgets that these works were not always thus constellated;
that they are the contributions of many ages and many countries; that
each came out of the solitary workshop of one artist, who toiled perhaps
in ignorance of the existence of other sculpture, created his work
without other model save life, household life, and the sweet and smart
of personal relations, of beating hearts, and meeting eyes; of poverty
and necessity and hope and fear. These were his inspirations, and these
are the effects he carries home to your heart and mind. In proportion
to his force, the artist will find in his work an outlet for his proper
character. He must not be in any manner pinched or hindered by his
material, but through his necessity of imparting himself the adamant
will be wax in his hands, and will allow an adequate communication of
himself, in his full stature and proportion. He need not cumber himself
with a conventional nature and culture, nor ask what is the mode in
Rome or in Paris, but that house and weather and manner of living which
poverty and the fate of birth have made at once so odious and so dear,
in the gray unpainted wood cabin, on the corner of a New Hampshire farm,
or in the log-hut of the backwoods, or in the narrow lodging where he
has endured the constraints and seeming of a city poverty, will serve
as well as any other condition as the symbol of a thought which pours
itself indifferently through all.

"I remember when in my younger days I had heard of the wonders of Italian
painting, I fancied the great pictures would be great strangers; some
surprising combination of color and form; a foreign wonder, barbaric
pearl and gold, like the spontoons and standards of the militia, which
play such pranks in the eyes and imaginations of school-boys. I was to
see and acquire I knew not what. When I came at last to Rome and saw
with eyes the pictures, I found that genius left to novices the gay and
fantastic and ostentatious, and itself pierced directly to the simple
and true; that it was familiar and sincere; that it was the old, eternal
fact I had met already in so many forms,--unto which I lived; that it
was the plain you and me I knew so well,--had left at home in so many
conversations. I had the same experience already in a church at Naples.
There I saw that nothing was changed with me but the place, and said
to myself--'Thou foolish child, hast thou come out hither, over four
thousand miles of salt water, to find that which was perfect to thee
there at home?' That fact I saw again in the Academmia at Naples, in
the chambers of sculpture, and yet again when I came to Rome and to the
paintings of Raphael, Angelo, Sacchi, Titian, and Leonardo da Vinci.
"What, old mole! workest thou in the earth so fast?" It had travelled
by my side; that which I fancied I had left in Boston was here in
the Vatican, and again at Milan and at Paris, and made all travelling
ridiculous as a treadmill. I now require this of all pictures, that
they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too
picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain
dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

"The Transfiguration, by Raphael, is an eminent example of this peculiar
merit. A calm benignant beauty shines over all this picture, and goes
directly to the heart. It seems almost to call you by name. The sweet
and sublime face of Jesus is beyond praise, yet how it disappoints all
florid expectations! This familiar, simple, home-speaking countenance is
as if one should meet a friend. The knowledge of picture-dealers has its
value, but listen not to their criticism when your heart is touched by
genius. It was not painted for them, it was painted for you; for such as
had eyes capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty emotions.

"Yet when we have said all our fine things about the arts, we must
end with a frank confession, that the arts, as we know them, are but
initial. Our best praise is given to what they aimed and promised, not
to the actual result. He has conceived meanly of the resources of man,
who believes that the best age of production is past. The real value
of the Iliad or the Transfiguration is as signs of power; billows or
ripples they are of the stream of tendency; tokens of the everlasting
effort to produce, which even in its worst estate the soul betrays. Art
has not yet come to its maturity if it do not put itself abreast with
the most potent influences of the world, if it is not practical and
moral, if it do not stand in connection with the conscience, if it do
not make the poor and uncultivated feel that it addresses them with a
voice of lofty cheer. There is higher work for Art than the arts. They
are abortive births of an imperfect or vitiated instinct. Art is
the need to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is
impatient of working with lame or tied hands, and of making cripples and
monsters, such as all pictures and statues are. Nothing less than the
creation of man and nature is its end. A man should find in it an outlet
for his whole energy. He may paint and carve only as long as he can do
that. Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance
on every side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal
relation and power which the work evinced in the artist, and its highest
effect is to make new artists.

"Already History is old enough to witness the old age and disappearance
of particular arts. The art of sculpture is long ago perished to any
real effect. It was originally a useful art, a mode of writing, a
savage's record of gratitude or devotion, and among a people possessed
of a wonderful perception of form this childish carving was refined to
the utmost splendor of effect. But it is the game of a rude and youthful
people, and not the manly labor of a wise and spiritual nation. Under an
oak-tree loaded with leaves and nuts, under a sky full of eternal eyes,
I stand in a thoroughfare; but in the works of our plastic arts and
especially of sculpture, creation is driven into a corner. I cannot hide
from myself that there is a certain appearance of paltriness, as of toys
and the trumpery of a theatre, in sculpture. Nature transcends all our
moods of thought, and its secret we do not yet find. But the gallery
stands at the mercy of our moods, and there is a moment when it becomes
frivolous. I do not wonder that Newton, with an attention habitually
engaged on the paths of planets and suns, should have wondered what the
Earl of Pembroke found to admire in "stone dolls." Sculpture may serve
to teach the pupil how deep is the secret of form, how purely the spirit
can translate its meanings into that eloquent dialect. But the statue
will look cold and false before that new activity which needs to roll
through all things, and is impatient of counterfeits and things not
alive. Picture and sculpture are the celebrations and festivities of
form. But true art is never fixed, but always flowing. The sweetest
music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from
its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. The oratorio
has already lost its relation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth,
but that persuading voice is in tune with these. All works of art should
not be detached, but extempore performances. A great man is a new statue
in every attitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which
drives all beholders nobly mad. Life may be lyric or epic, as well as a
poem or a romance.

"A true announcement of the law of creation, if a man were found worthy
to declare it, would carry art up into the kingdom of nature, and
destroy its separate and contrasted existence. The fountains of
invention and beauty in modern society are all but dried up. A popular
novel, a theatre, or a ball-room makes us feel that we are all paupers
in the alms-house of this world, without dignity, without skill or
industry. Art is as poor and low. The old tragic Necessity, which lowers
on the brows even of the Venuses and the Cupids of the antique, and
furnishes the sole apology for the intrusion of such anomalous figures
into nature,--namely, that they were inevitable; that the artist was
drunk with a passion for form which he could not resist, and which
vented itself in these fine extravagances,--no longer dignifies the
chisel or the pencil. But the artist and the connoisseur now seek in art
the exhibition of their talent, or an asylum from the evils of life.
Men are not well pleased with the figure they make in their own
imaginations, and they flee to art, and convey their better sense in
an oratorio, a statue, or a picture. Art makes the same effort which
a sensual prosperity makes; namely to detach the beautiful from the
useful, to do up the work as unavoidable, and, hating it, pass on to
enjoyment. These solaces and compensations, this division of beauty from
use, the laws of nature do not permit. As soon as beauty is sought, not
from religion and love but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker. High
beauty is no longer attainable by him in canvas or in stone, in sound,
or in lyrical construction; an effeminate, prudent, sickly beauty, which
is not beauty, is all that can be formed; for the hand can never execute
any thing higher than the character can inspire.

"The art that thus separates is itself first separated. Art must not be
a superficial talent, but must begin farther back in man. Now men do not
see nature to be beautiful, and they go to make a statue which shall
be. They abhor men as tasteless, dull, and inconvertible, and console
themselves with color-bags and blocks of marble. They reject life as
prosaic, and create a death which they call poetic. They despatch the
day's weary chores, and fly to voluptuous reveries. They eat and drink,
that they may afterwards execute the ideal. Thus is art vilified; the
name conveys to the mind its secondary and bad senses; it stands in the
imagination as somewhat contrary to nature, and struck with death from
the first. Would it not be better to begin higher up,--to serve the
ideal before they eat and drink; to serve the ideal in eating and
drinking, in drawing the breath, and in the functions of life? Beauty
must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction between the fine
and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told, if life
were nobly spent, it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish
the one from the other. In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It
is therefore beautiful because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it
is therefore useful because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will
not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or
America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and
spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men. It is in vain that
we look for genius to reiterate its miracles in the old arts; it is its
instinct to find beauty and holiness in new and necessary facts, in the
field and road-side, in the shop and mill. Proceeding from a religious
heart it will raise to a divine use the railroad, the insurance office,
the joint-stock company; our law, our primary assemblies, our commerce,
the galvanic battery, the electric jar, the prism, and the chemist's
retort; in which we seek now only an economical use. Is not the selfish
and even cruel aspect which belongs to our great mechanical works, to
mills, railways, and machinery, the effect of the mercenary impulses
which these works obey? When its errands are noble and adequate, a
steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England and arriving
at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into
harmony with nature. The boat at St. Petersburg, which plies along the
Lena by magnetism, needs little to make it sublime. When science is
learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear
the supplements and continuations of the material creation.

I read the other day some verses by Emerson

 "I READ the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.   

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.   
      

 "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.    

 "What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.      

"The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as it were clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges and, having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence,—must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men and put them in fear...."

Read the rest of Emerson's delightful verse (you won't be sorry) at the lovely Gutenberg.org site -- a free ebook site that warms my soul...the web the way it was meant.

Happiness? Gutenberg and Emerson make me happy, truly happy.

"...Most Americans underestimate the risk of developing a disability and needing long-term services and supports (LTSS). Using microsimulation modeling, we estimate that about half (52%) of Americans turning 65 today will develop a disability serious enough to require LTSS, although most will need assistance for less than two years. About one in seven adults, however, will have a disability for more than five years. On average, an American turning 65 today will incur $138,000 in future LTSS costs, which could be financed by setting aside $70,000 today. Families will pay about half of the costs themselves out-of-pocket, with the rest covered by public programs and private insurance. While most people with LTSS needs will spend relatively little on their care, about one in six (17%) will spend at least $100,000 out-of-pocket for future LTSS...."

U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services

“Who are we, and how do we relate to each other?   ‘Luciano Floridi, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy, argues that the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing the answer to these fundamental human questions.   ‘As the boundaries between life online and offline break down, and we become seamlessly connected to each other and surrounded by smart, responsive objects, we are all becoming integrated into an "infosphere".   ‘Personas we adopt in social media, for example, feed into our 'real' lives so that we begin to live, as Floridi puts in, "onlife".   ‘Following those led by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud, this metaphysical shift represents nothing less than a fourth revolution.   "Onlife" defines more and more of our daily activity - the way we shop, work, learn, care for our health, entertain ourselves, conduct our relationships; the way we interact with the worlds of law, finance, and politics; even the way we conduct war.   ‘ In every department of life, ICTs have become environmental forces which are creating and transforming our realities.   ‘How can we ensure that we shall reap their benefits? ‘What are the implicit risks?   ‘Are our technologies going to enable and empower us, or constrain us?   “Floridi argues that we must expand our ecological and ethical approach to cover both natural and man-made realities, putting the 'e' in an environmentalism that can deal successfully with the new challenges posed by our digital technologies and information society. ‘”   --Floridi, Luciano (2014). The Fourth Revolution. How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality.. Oxford University Press.   http://philpapers.org/rec/FLOTFR-2

mobile

Repost

Practicing blogging from my tablet (no it's not an iPad). And I'm learning that on thethe keyboard... when it activates... completely blocks out text to be seen. In other words, I can't see what I'm typing when using the qwerty keyboard. So... here goes.... * pinches nose and hits" publish"... *

Practicing blogging on my phone.

Upgrades and Updates are Tiresome

I just wanted to blog but I'm glad I didn't make it my day job.

I don't want a thousand friends.

Several things happened the last few times I visited my beloved blogspot.

First, an old stalker found me, so I disappeared again for a while.

Stalker? you say?

You must be imagining things! LOL!

Second, I tried to write on a topic women traditionally were warned away from (i.e., topics as they relate to money).

I didn't want to defend myself to commentators.

I just wanted to blog.

Is it an important topic? Well, to me it is but I don't know if I want to try to blog about it.

I just want to blog.

Still, some time later money is still an important topic.

Why?

Because in our culture, you can't live without it.

So, I just wanted to blog about it.
And now I believe I have recovered from the early blogging days.

Still, it's a challenge because at every sign-in, blogger wants my right arm.

But--like with the rest of the technological revolution--I now know I don't have to cut it off.

The blogging world has changed so much from the days before Merriam Webster Dictionary recognized the word, blog.

And yet, blogspot spellchecker doesn't like the words, "blogspot" or "LOL"!

And, I'm still here.

:)

"All Under Heaven See Beauty as Beauty

"...only because they also see ugliness.
All announce that good is good
only because they also denounce what is bad.

Therefore, something and nothing give birth to one another
Difficult and easy complete one another.
Long and short fashion one another.
High and low arise from one another.
Front and back follow one another.

Thus, the True Person acts without striving
and teaches without words.

Deny nothing to the ten thousand things.

Nourish them without claiming authority,
Benefit them without demanding gratitude,
Do the work, then move on.

And, the fruits of your labor will last forever."

McCarroll's translation of Chapter Two of the Tao Te Ching

Take your profession seriously; don't take yourself seriously

"Don't take yourself seriously in the process, because you really only matter to a certain degree in the whole circus out here.

"If you take yourself seriously you're not going to be able to move forward and use your best artistic instincts.

"You're going to be hampered by always wanting to look in the mirror and see if you have enough tuna oil in your hair or something like that."

Eastwood, Clint -- Zuckerman, Andrew; Vlack, Alex: Wisdom, Life; PQ Blackwell in Association with Abrams, New York, page 111

The Soul Selects her own Society –

then – shuts the door –

to her divine majority –

Present no more.

Unmoved – she notes the Chariot’s pausing

At her low Gate –

Unmoved – an emperor is kneeling

Upon her Mat.

I’ve known her from an Ample Nation –

Choose One –

Then – Close the Valves of her Attention –

Like Stone.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, Franklin; Fascicle 20, H66; Belknap Harvard

I'm Going to Plant Morning Glories to Drape Down the Sides of my Porch

http://www.burpee.com/flowers/all-annuals/introduction-to-annual-flowers-article10453.html

I received a handful of seeds from a client last year. Tonight I am going to soak them to aid germination and then early tomorrow morning when I awake with perimenopausal sweats at 4 a.m., I will escape to my porch and sow them 1/2-inch deep in my coco window boxes, which are hanging over the railing. Then I will go out each early morning to spy the beauties because according to my client, "they will open first at night." According to the site posted above, which I found via Google, the seedlings will emerge in 7 to 21 days. They can tail along the railings or I can train them to climb up string to create a private hiding place on my porch, which otherwise looks over a parking lot.

When dealing with conflicting emotions

Try to focus on more supportive beliefs. We all occassionally have good reasons for some good beliefs only to find ourselves in contradictory environments, which cause us to change our long-held beliefs. Cognitive dissonance ensues. We can feel tortured by the conflicting values.

Here is a short list to help rearrange those long-held values when necessary.

A google search led to Kendra Cherry's citations at About.com and key strategies to reduce or minimize cognitive dissonance.

Here is a short list of three strategies to minimize negative feelings related to cognitive dissonance (conflicting values and beliefs):

1) focus on more supportive beliefs that outweigh dissonant belief or behavior
2) reduce the importance of the conflicting belief
3) change the conflicting belief so that it is consistent with other beliefs or behaviors

More info for future ideas at wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Challenges_and_qualifications

I

....
don't
....
have
....
time
....
right
....
now
....
to
....
try
....
something
....
new
....
again
....

Change is strange. You think you're changing in one direction just to come to see you're actually changing in a completely different manner. I try to embrace change but in today's era, it feels like it is an endless task. It is endless and it is moment by moment. But I am trying to keep up and I guess if I just get through a few .... .... .... .... thousand .... more .... changes .... i .... think .... i .... can .... do .... this....

Austrailian Prime Minister discusses what's happening economically

Julia Gillard discusses what is really happening economically throughout the world.

Wall Street Journal Video Interview

Mass psychosis in the US - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Mass psychosis in the US - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

What is an Endowment with Financial Adviser Patrick Munro

What Is an Endowment? -- powered by ehow

http://www.ehow.com/video_4981387_what-endowment.html

Make the Crooked Straight,

"Make the straight to flow.
Gather water, fire, and light.
Bring the world to a single point.


"If we have devotion--total fatih and commitment to our spiritual path--our determination will naturally build momentum. Fewer and fewer obstructions will come before us. Our path becomes like a crooked one made straight. No matter what tries to keep us from our purpose, we will not be deterred.

Proper devotion lies not simply in a headlong course. It also requires fortitude. Our bodies, our hearts, and our spirits must be totally concentrated upon what we want. Only by uniting all our inner elements can we have full devotion.

If we see our path clearly and our personalities are completely unified, then there is no distinction between the outer world and the inner one. Nothing is faraway anymore, nothing is not open to us. That is why it is said that the world is like a single point: So strong is devotion that there is nothing that is not a part of it."

(365 Tao, Daily Mediations: Deng Ming-Dao, HarperOne)

Cheeta

Cheetah Siesta

“People have to actively and consciously develop the habit of self-compassion”

Is willpower and self-discipline the keys to better health? No, suggests Dr. Neff, associate professor of human development at the University of Texas at Austin. Instead many of us just need to give ourselves a break and accept our imperfections if we want to improve our overall health. This concept doesn't jive with many doctors and self-help books, many of which suggest willpower and self-discipline is the only way to a more healthful lifestyle, according to a recent blog in the New York Times.


The biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that we're afraid we’ll become self-indulgent, according to Blogger Tara Parker-Pope, commenting on Neff's research work.

Parker-Pope said, "People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising."

The February 2011 story said, "research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic."

"we shall not cease from exploration

"and the end of our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
through the unknown, remembered gate
when the last of earth left to discover
is that which is the beginning;
at the source of the longest river
the voice of the hidden waterfall
and the children in the apple-tree
not known, because not looked for
but heard, half-heard, in the stillness
between two waves of the sea."
--T.S. Eliot

Speaking of money...Anais Nin wrote erotica to make money

I am not interested in that type of writing even though I adore all Nin's previous books. I also understand why --during her era-- the only way she could use her extaordinary gifts and talents in a man's world, was to write crap to entertain men.

I really do understand why she did what she did at the time she did it. If I lived in her era, it is likely I would have come to the same conclusion if I wanted to continue to sustain my life, just like the next guy.

But, fortunately, because of women like Nin, I don't have to use my gifts and talents to write crap to entertain the most base elements of man.

I think I will keep writing whatever I want to write

I stopped writing for a while for several reasons but I guess everyone needs a break now and then. I am going to start writing again about the things that interest me. Lately, money interests me. I am interested in how to create a means to sustain my life. In our culture, that means learning how to not only make money, but decide to save money too but that's not the end of it either because once we decide to save the money we learned to earn, then we have to learn how to make those savings grow. That is what I want to do here in this blog because as a woman, that is the most important thing to me at this time in my life.

I am not religious but I do find myself still praying the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary -- in the back of my mind -- on many occassions. It is curiuos that though I was held accountable to many Catholic doctrines and dogmas, I was never taught the rosary -- which of course is why I am curious now (tee hee). I do not ascribe to the religious doctrines, though I do find many characteristics for human behavior helpful in everyday life. (i.e.: when tempted to lift something that isn't mine, and no one will see me, i remember "thou shalt not steal.")

Strangely, I've been eating Oat Bran for years

And look at this, I was right: The Dukan Diet, ABC News and

I thought that I heard you sing...but that was just a dream....

This is the season of the melting snows

After winter, spring always come. Like a tree. Push push push. Just laugh. Where'd that energy come from?: through the feet, up the spine....shoooosh...spring reigns....

Q: What are you going to do? Sit around all day blogging?

A: No. Just the weekends.

"...Here is the situation in which the unusual has reached a climax

"One is courageous and wishes to accomplish one's task, no matter what happens.

"This leads into danger.

"The water rises over one's head.

"This is the misfortune.

"But one incurs no blame in giving up one's life that the good and the right may prevail.

"There are thiings that are more important than life."

(Wilhelm/Baynes: The I Ching or Book of Changes, page 114; Bollingen Series XIX, Princeton University Press 1950)

"The Road Not Taken" from Mountain Interval

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

"Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

"And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh! I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."


--Robert Frost

Can You Keep Up?

The world has changed so much and it is so difficult to keep up. Some days I feel like I just can't believe how fast it changes.

I want to cry. But instead, I'm going to post this link to a youtube submission about just how fast this world is changing. I found it on another forum.

It's been too long

I miss writing here but I'm scared an old "friend" is still stalking me via my blog.

sitting at the cafe with my one of my lovely daughters

enjoying our lives together, sharing this and that and everything and nothing and clicking on links with my new netbook. so, here's what we were up to most recently. thus, here is a post to get started blogging again after a long vacation. anyway, this is my card. (p.s.: oh, and i recieved my bachelor of arts degree in the mail on saturday, *smiles*):

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Need I really say more?

Janis Joplin, ball and chain live at Monterey 1967

...for some reason links aren't working today so let's just do it the old-fashioned way because I'm not in the mood to mess around with Mr. Technology tonight!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FlUAxqQkmc&NR=1
...and for good measure, this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ou63LX0NM&NR=1

Life Questions

I have found throughout my life that the road to what is typically considered vices, was the most difficult road I had taken and which I still laboriously travel.

It took me years and years to become human, indulgent.

It took me years to allow myself pleasure. I still am not there yet.

I easily conformed to the status quo of what is seen as morality.

(definition of morality in this context: the 'right' way women are supposed to live and be but which is not applied to men.)

I was effortlessly molded into forms for the pleasure of others.

It was easy to behave according to other peoples’ perception as to what was proper.

(Those ideals regarding what the collective expected of me were typically not very moral at all.)

It took me years to rebuke those judgments, on the road to vice; it has been a lifelong struggle to learn to be brave enough to act ‘immorally.’

My biggest Life Question is how to ignore idealisms constructed of implausible notions and alternative realities.

It is about consciously retaining what actually does or could exist or happen in real life.

My main Life Question at this time is how to sift through and retain reality as it is—as opposed to invented romanticized notions.

In facing illusions I must see what is sincere, realistic. In facing illusions I must admit what is true, what is genuine, authentic, existent and real.

I can get caught up in futility and don’t move forward because it is difficult to see clearly.

I have been dazed by what supposed realisms seemed to offer only to discover, after a long journey to get there, only to find nothing real.

I sometimes listen to idealism. I sometimes aspire to achieve perfection as an attainable goal.

I sometimes give too much credence to beliefs that material things are imaginary as if they’re only a construction of my mind.

I sometimes listen to the words people speak rather than what’s behind the words.

Sometimes my Life Question is as simple as accepting that there are views that appear to be one thing when, in fact, they’re another.

Completeness is nurtured though when I appreciate wherever I am and pardon myself while staying conscious of false impressions.

Wholeness is nurtured when I accept where I am and forgive myself and become aware of the fantasy—then proceed to consciously lift the veils to the experience of my reality.

Fullness is fostered when I accept where I am and forgive myself and remain conscious of illusion.

Seeing the reality behind illusion is what brings me to wholeness and completeness, which begins to lay the groundwork to explore other Life Questions.

This is for you Jahara!

Take your passion and make it happen (click here for youtube video).

"First, when there's nothing but a slow glowing dream
That your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind
All alone I have cried silent tears full of pride
In a world made of steel, made of stone

Well I hear the music, close my eyes, feel the rhythm
Wrap around, take a hold of my heart

[Chorus:]
What a feeling, bein's believin'
I can't have it all, now I'm dancin' for my life
Take your passion, and make it happen
Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life

[Solo]

Now I hear the music, close my eyes, I am rhythm
In a flash it takes hold of my heart

[chorus (with ... "now I'm dancing through my life")]

What a feeling

What a feeling (I am music now), bein's believin' (I am rhythm now)
Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life
What a feeling (I can really have it all)
What a feeling (Pictures come alive when I call)
I can have it all (I can really have it all)
Have it all (Pictures come alive when I call)
(call, call, call, call, what a feeling) I can have it all
(Bein's believin') bein's believin'
(Take your passion, make it happen) make it happen
(What a feeling) what a feeling... [to fade]"

(Note: Jahara, this movie came out when you were born. This is the song I was talking about Saturday. The break dance stuff at the end of the first part was pretty new for white women at that time. The story, if I remember correctly, is that she was desperately trying to be seen as a valid ballet dancer. She is auditioning in the first section video.)

lyrics

LOL! I just did a test I found on a blog

by Sum>Parts. And, this is my results as to what my Tarot card is:

You are Justice

Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the observing side in law.

Justice is about cold, objective balance through reason or natural force. You can't keep smoking and drinking without consequences to your health. It is the card that advises cutting out waste and insists that you make adjustments, do whatever is necessary to bring things back into balance, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually. It is a card of balance and harmony; if there is imbalance, the correction may
require recourse to the law.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Yes, I Really Am Getting Older Every Day

I just learned today that I am eligible for long-term care insurance through my domestic partner's program. This is one criterion that has been important to me to secure as I move toward my fifties.

It will be a big relief to know that for about $200 a year I can secure my health when or if I become unable to care for myself when I get older. I don't want my children to have to be burdened with worrying about taking care of me if I need help.

Jack and I saw a PBS documentary a while back about the devastation an elder parent can cause adult children. In some families it broke them and in others it broke marriages too.

Fortunately, I don’t have to care for my own mother at this time but not too long ago she was hospitalized for a short period of time and it immediately put a strain on family members, particularly my sisters and I and our daughters.

And that was just minor.

I feel fortunate to have discovered that one criteria may be resolved soon and it’s good that I do it now because the younger I am when I apply—the less expensive it is going to be. Also, I don’t have many medical issues right now so that makes eligibility easier.

My next steps are going to have to be getting a retirement plan in place. I know Social Security is going to go through some type of reform and I can’t depend on that. Plus, Jack’s parents’ Social Security is only enough to pay for their medication and pay for their Medigap policy, which they really need.

His mom has been sick for years. And his dad has had major surgeries in the past few years.

Today Jack gave me some information about what types of retirement programs may work for me as I almost finish with my bachelor’s degree and consider what type of work I am going to do.

To friends that used to visit awomansblog:

I am sorry about not posting in so long. I can’t get into the details right now about why I haven’t been posting but I think I will be able to get back up to speed where I used to be. I will be in touch with you soon, anna and jj, and hope you’re doing well.

A Long and Winding Mother's Dream

I dreamt last night that my son, who is now 23 years old, was a toddler being a typical tot (I call him Mark on my blog). Mark was the kind of toddler who inspires doctors and tried-and-true mothers to write parenting books to lend a hand to other parents who are at their wits end during trying transitions in their children’s lives.

In the dream Mark was being the curious and energetic toddler (and teen) he was in real life. In the dream he was acting the way he did then, attempting to disregard rules that cramped his style. In the dream and in real life, he was persistently and tenaciously intent on creating new opportunities to fulfill his own visions of sugar plums dancing in his head. Social norms were perceived only as obstacles to limit his sources for fun, enthusiasm or satisfaction. And isn’t this how it should be?

In the dream, as I did in real life, I am calmly steering him and guiding him away from ill-conceived endeavors that would risk his life or safety, or the safety or liberty of his siblings and others. In a Zen-like fashion, I redirect him repeatedly and calmly—consciously careful I don’t make him feel like a bad boy—but just as a matter of realistic fact.

He was doing what toddlers do and I was doing what mothers do; things like keeping him from playing in the road or kneeling on the ledge of a fourth-story window to get a better view of the people celebrating below, downstairs neighbors and their friends who fluttered 30-feet-down on the stone patio. (In real life it was his cousin “Tom” who did that, not Mark.)

In the dream later, I am in a colossal university lecture hall, which reminds me of the non-denominational church where I used to be a dutiful member and very much like the university I attend in real life. In the dream, I am trying to find a seat. Many seats are wacky and things keep going wrong (falling off their bolted legs, broken swivel desk pallets, etc.), I eventually find a seat, after meandering from one broken or unavailable desk seat to another. But what stands out is that I do this all in a noticeably tranquil but enthused manner.

There are other students who are having the same difficulty. The previously seated students are oblivious to our difficulty finding a desk chair. They are listening to the professors, comfortable in their working chairs with working swivel desk pallets. At one point I am conspicuously aware of my long black hair as I wend my way through more mismatched seats, squeezing through and by narrow aisles and hundreds of students/parishioners.

In the dream, after I found a seat and after the lecture is finished, I kindly tell the pastor/professor that the visiting professors, who he brought in to demonstrate or lecture, had very good teaching styles. I can tell he notices that I did not say he has a good teaching style. However, I compliment him regarding his own expertise (can’t remember now but it is about the classroom material).

I do not tell him that he has a good teaching style himself because it is not true. He hears what I am saying because I can tell he already knows where his strengths are, and where they fall short. He is not too vain. He is not too proud. He mentally notes what he is doing right and he will keep inviting visiting professors.

I can not remember any more of the dream right now so if I were to try to interpret it I would guess that I need to be more Zen-like with that toddler in me, the side of myself that is endlessly curious for new ideas and projects. I know I need to calmly and lovingly redirect my own nature that wants to pursue learning and illumination naturally but I need to sort out the effective sources from those that are not fruitful or helpful. I need to discern between obstacles that are good for me and those I must climb over.

So, symbolically, the mother in me knows not to hate and call someone bad for experiencing and longing for what many women experience during peri-menopause and after the kids leave home. I know I need to accept, like many other women my age, that this is a turning point in our lives after the children are grown. And it will take time to learn to climb new ropes.

As for the analogous dream professor/pastor, there are some visiting teachers and spiritual leaders in my daytime life that have a good style and others who have strengths in other areas. Also, there are some things about my own style of doing things that are good but I will not deceive or flatter my own animus* regarding things I am not good at.

(*In Jungian psychology a woman’s animus is that side of her self that has what is described as her more masculine traits and which also is thought to be the side of her nature that pushes her to action. The animus is thought to be the innate nature in a woman that encourages her to paint that picture or write that book or go for that promotion, etc. According to my understanding of Jungian psychology, males in women's dreams, including our sons, often represent a woman's animus.)


If the dream is about my own animus, then it fits with my latest attempts to gently inform myself of the truths and falsehoods in my life; the things I’m good at and the those I am not. If the dream is about my own animus, it fits with my latest reflections regarding the truth about the elements within my own psyche that are not proficient or well-developed. I will not tell myself that something is top-quality when it is not but I will recognize its unique effectiveness or significance. I will try to accept more than one truth, more than one value, more than one nature within myself.

This motivating factor in my psyche can handle this; he can accept and know that some ideas or ways of doing things are not all that good, while other abilities are very good. He is not too vain. He is not too proud. In the dream it is apparent that he will continue to teach but will also be encouraged to bring in visiting professors or divine guides, encouraged to keep doing what works. That is part of his strength and he is not blinded to his own good strategy to get his job done, to get through, to get by, and to make it to the next stage of life.

Ultimately right now I see there are things I need to do that are better than others and at this time, it is the pesky mundane tasks that want to send me off to a more compelling enterprise. Additionally, there are teachers I find who are better at teaching than others but this one also has his strengths. So, I will try to be honest with myself regarding varying values in my own psyche; keep it integrated; value the good in each facet of myself and accept that some desirable qualities are not present.

Analogously, teachers in my life could be the professionals I read regarding stock trading or they could be university professors in various subjects or any number of people who I perceive as spiritual guides. But I think too that in addition to real-life people I know, perhaps they also represent the practiced and proficient traits within my own nature—each with their own but differing qualities. And, it is wise to assess each value individually but truthfully.

The parts in the dream represent possibly the sense I feel so often these days as I attempt to wend my way through the hallowed halls of this new period in my life, finding some seats and writing pallets out of order, ruined, wrecked, finished, useless, defunct, kaput. (This is painful.) All the while, hoping and continuing to find one that works.

As I wend through this time in my life I try to remain conscious and grateful of both spiritual and material muscle. Regarding the hair part of the dream, it reminds me of the Mexican Indian I met on the street who told me that my hair was my power. I knew what he meant and he wasn’t flirting. And, I remember times, like during one particularly trying time in my life, that I felt the need to wear my long hair loose and straight to remind myself of the native powers, even if they got tangled.

Though I may try one seat or one swiveling writing tablet, I know all I need to do is walk past those that are ruined. I know that I need to keep looking for a functioning desk chair. I know I am to stay focused and need to continue the healthy pursuit of whatever will help get me through my own transition. And this brings me full circle to the discussion I had with my friend yesterday, who I call Caren on my blog.

After I wrote yesterday’s blog, I went to Caren’s house. We talked about Mark and how in his teens, my objective was not necessarily to find the perfect didactic curriculum for him but to follow guidance I received from an older woman and mother. This older woman taught me what to do for my son years ago. (I will call her Laura.) Caren knows all the things Laura taught me.

Laura encouraged me to just keep trying different forms of coaching and tutoring during a difficult time in Mark’s teen years. Laura taught me to do whatever worked to get him through a very difficult teenage transition. Laura made me see it was just a developmental stage. Laura kept me focused and calm and helped me to stay focused on the goal. The goal was to help him make the transition successfully to adulthood. Nothing more. It didn't matter what the neighbors said either.

I learned then that it is not always the journey that matters. So through his toddler days, I consulted pediatricians and found little ways to ease his transition. During his teen years, we kept re-enrolling him in different programs, just to see what worked. I never knew what would work but I had to just keep trying and just keep encouraging him.

Laura had taught me to just keep going and continue trying and to keep loving him—no matter what—until he got through the difficult transition many teens experience before they pass successfully into adulthood. And that counselor was right because my 23-year-old is a wonderful man now who matures more and more every day.

So yesterday over several cups of instant coffee, Caren and I decided that for ourselves now, we would mother ourselves in the same way. We would love ourselves and remind each other to do whatever works, not according to current trends and convention but whatever works—just to get through a difficult transition.

We agreed to remind each other that we are like toddlers and teens who are in a natural life process wherein we’re both undergoing a change and passing from one stage of life to another and with that we are shifting from one type of accomplishment and understanding to others.

We don’t have to know exactly at every moment what will work and what won’t. We just need to keep going.

We decided that we wouldn’t hate ourselves for sometimes not knowing exactly how to develop from an earlier phase of life to a later phase of life. Caren and I decided that together we would be patient with ourselves as we observe this prototype with its gradual development into another complex, enhanced or time-honored form. It seems too that my dreams may be intent on reminding me.

Our talk yesterday reminds me that like my son, I will make mistakes, I will want things I can’t have or can’t accomplish as I enter into a new phase of life while approaching 50 and while my childbearing self is changing naturally and rightly so. We talked about how with this change comes some uncertainty.

The dream and our conversation also reminds me to be gentle and understand that yes we may want to peek over a ledge but that we can gently and lovingly turn ourselves around to more productive endeavors. (Just wish I knew where the symbolic ledges are.)

It reminds me that though we may sometimes use aids that may not be the greatest or have teachers who are not the best lecturers, it sometimes is just about getting through the transition, or use visiting professors. So, considering the way I gently guided my son, even though some things were just to pass the time until he outgrew a former stage, I can do that too now for myself and for my friend Caren. Toddlers and teens do not transition perfectly and neither will we.

I loved my son, even though many times I disapproved of some coping techniques. But I always valued his determined nature and his insightful spirit. When he wanted something, like to get a soccer goal, nothing stopped him. He focused. Sure, he tumbled and struggled through various situations. But he was enthusiastic. He was driven. He still is.

My job as his mother was to help him through all the variables in the work of growing up in a complex world and to help him retain his unique and precious self, nonetheless. My job was to teach him to be careful for himself and others and to help him even when teachers threw up their arms when he entered the room. My job was to pay attention to the teachers who saw the beauty of his passionate nature. My job was to work with them.

So in the end, this dream and viable interpretation reminds me of another dream I had a year or two ago. It was simply an incorporeal dream voice. In that dream a tender, kind and loving voice said to me: “Mother, love thy self.”

This morning I woke up feeling like a loser

again, which is not such a strange occurrence in my life. I know I don’t really have reason to feel this way but nonetheless I do. So, I did what I always do when I feel like a jerk. I sat down by the sunny window and did a few more rows of a granny square. My latest crochet project is a granny square afghan, which I feel is a memorial to the best needle worker I have ever known, and sewed one of the finished six-row granny squares to the other five that I completed earlier this week.

But at 9:30 a.m. I had to get back to my computer because that’s when the market opens; yesterday I put three trades in after the market closed and I had to cancel some former orders so that they didn’t sell or buy two times. Anyway, after I was done that I decided to take a break and think about a blog I may want to write.

So, it was somewhat thought provoking to see jj’s comment wherein she asked me to post more about my knitting and crochet projects. She has carpal tunnel and likes to read about needlework and that makes sense to me, particularly because this afghan I am making is from odd lots of yarn that Jack’s mom gave me and Jack’s mom has used needlework her entire life to keep her hands working. But now more than 60 years of knitting and crochet, and at 80-something-years old, her arthritic hands are a challenge and she is now doing less needlework.


I’ll call Jack’s mom Andrea for the purposes of this blog. Jack’s mom is an inspiration to me. When Andrea was in her teens, she learned she had arthritis. Her hands have been crippled for numerous decades and she swears that knitting and crocheting saved her hands. That woman makes the most beautiful hats, mittens and Irish knit sweaters. Her sweaters must be worth a thousand dollars. I have never seen such beautiful Irish knit. She has treasure chests full of the finest work I’ve ever seen and she gives it all away to people in her life and to charity.

The detail and creative patterns always evoke compliments when I wear them and I wear them as often as I can. She tried to teach me Irish knit but I learned to knit and crochet through books and only know how to follow the coded directions. I couldn’t understand what she meant as she would describe that I had to think about the way the yarn was going to come back around. I so wish I could have learned from her but this woman has needlework in her bones, the bones she describes as “dying while she’s still living.”

She once asked Jack and I if we understood how archeologists can find bones thousands of years later that are intact but while she lives, her hands (and feet) can die, continuously becoming smaller and smaller and smaller. She’s seen doctors all her life and engaged in some experimental medicine, some of which she regrets and other medicinal remedies that she is ever so grateful for, but still her hands get smaller and smaller as the years advance. Andrea describes why she started needlework. After needing to quit her job years ago she took up needlework, precisely to save her hands. It has worked and she is otherwise a healthy woman, and smart!

Regarding learning styles, it was interesting that last week after someone on a woman’s forum gave me a website for granny squares, I printed out the instructions and got started with my new idea for what to do with Andrea’s yarn. (I would love to give it to her for birthday but I worry it will make her sad that she can’t do needlework so much anymore.) The instructions were on the coffee table near the first granny square. Jack picked up the pattern and said: how can you read this?

I told him that in my late 30s (we weren’t together then) I decided to teach myself to crochet. I bought a simple book and sat there day in and day out learning what all those symbols and strange lowercase acronyms meant. After telling him how I taught myself I realized that I’m doing that again but now it’s different acronyms and different symbols and it’s in a different skill. In the early days I spent so many hours doing needlework, later teaching myself to knit, and I found needlework to be an absolutely wonderful form of meditation.

It encouraged me also because I can so easily read needlework patterns now and it is somewhat analogous to my nature. Maybe I always need to be learning new symbols and terminology. Maybe I’m just so much like my mother. It’s like when I taught myself to bake for my children and then ended up working as a paid baker for nearly a decade to support them. So, as I write this I am reminding myself that once again, I am in a new place and learning something new and maybe someday I will actually be able to create a retirement income for myself when I am an old lady, which was my original objective to begin with when I started stock trading.

And if I can do that then maybe I will have the time to learn some of that Irish knit like Jack’s mom. I am sure I could never become as good as she is because needlework is truly in her bones and I know I could never get that good. And, if I learn this stock-trading gobbledygook, maybe by then I can also commit myself to learning to photograph my projects and post them on my blog. (Or maybe I can convince jj to blog a post about how to do it! *wink*)

Ok, and so now my dearest friend just called me and asked me to come over to visit (in my jammies) and so I’m going to today just screw the rest of being a stock trader for now. I’m going to go and be lazy. (No, I’m not going to edit this 10 ten times before I post it either.)

But! I will leave you with this, just because. Have a lovely day all...I'm off to play hookie:)



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Update 5:30 p.m.: Wow, home now and looking back over what I posted all I can say is that that was one serious random freewriting but it's all good. Anyway, I wore Andrea's Irish knit sweater today and my friend loved it (I'll call her Caren). She's a needleworker too. She told me to bring my granny squares to show her and I did. She showed me her works too. Caren has been crocheting for years and years. Her work is exquisite (sp). We often talk about our projects. Caren tells me that my lack of need to be "perfect" in needlework inspire her. I don't know why I can let a stich drop in needlework but in the rest of my life I am hard-pressed to let myself skip a stitch or step. But as I said, needlework is my meditation and maybe I ought to let myself skip a stitch in the rest of my life too. (And so again, I will not edit my update, just for practice:)

No End in Sight

I don't know exactly what to say about this preview for the movie titled, "No End in Sight." I may have to go see it but all I can say is that it creates a terrible knot in my gut.

I'm Out of Their League

Today’s Who’s Who on Market Street is one of the reasons the Wall Street financial industry has always earned my disrespect and I’m not sure if I can resolve this internal conflict. From what I can tell, if you do a really bad job they pay you $161.5 million in restricted stock options and benefits to get you the eff out of there.

Merrill Lynch & Co.’s ejected CEO Stan O’Neal though just might have enough millions to overcome the suffering for being a failure in the industry’s eyes. I guess that’s why most love this business because you win even if everyone thinks you’re a loser. I guess it is good for many but it’s insultingly excessive to my mind. In addition to his millions, O’Neal will receive an office and an assistant for three years. It’s not to difficult to comprehend how he will survive; and this is him being ripped off, according to some commentators.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “Merrill directors didn't offer Mr. O'Neal cash severance or a bonus for 2007. They and he agreed he had accumulated considerable wealth during his 21-year career, made a lot of money last year and didn't deserve extra rewards on his way out the door.” So, this is what is status quo and the ousted chief executive officer is not getting anything that he doesn’t deserve but it sounds like some think he deserves more.

Keri Smith at Keri’s Life blog thinks he's being treated poorly because he's black. She said:

Stan O'Neal, the 56-year old CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. has been forced to leave his job due to a significant multi-billion dollar write-off he announced last week. Although his departure was rumoured to occur, it was surprising how quickly the board was willing to oust Mr. O'Neal.

Mr. O'Neal became the highest ranking African-American on Wall Street - rising from the cotton fields of Wedowee, Alabama, to the top position at Merrill Lynch.”

Respondent lance williams, sr at Nat Turner’s Revenge blog said...
“O'Neal got too slick. He's a cold fish and if he'd just come clean with the board and the big shareholders all at once, he'd be OK.”

Lisa there said: "Will the big stockholders now avoid black CEOs? It's always disparate when it comes to us--they judge us by a few. In corporate America this kind of housecleaning happens all the time but there's "judgment" aspect. It's the same with female CEO on the way out,too."

The Nat's blogger Christopher Chambers, said the chief executive has been criticized for “leading the world’s largest brokerage to its biggest quarterly loss since it was founded 93 years ago.”

Being so new to this industry, first of all I didn’t even know the man was black when I started writing this blog and in fact, this morning as I thought about taking a paltry profit on some of my stocks, to keep me to breaking even, I recalled an interview I saw with O’Neal. I was unaware who he was at that time and didn't realize it until I opened these blogs this morning, which are linked to the WSJ article.

My thought this morning was that it’s better to be safe, which is what O'Neal was saying in the interview that I recalled this morning. Risk management was what O’Neal was talking about in the interview a couple of weeks ago on Bloomberg TV. I liked what the man said and remembered it this morning over coffee. I was thinking I would take the profits from two stocks to total $200, which would bring me close to my beginning capital to break even. I’m definitely not much of a risk taker and told myself that though he was being criticized on the show, I believe in his philosophy.

In the interview the interviewer seemed to be grilling O'Neal about his philosophy when he explained how important it is to resist greed; O'Neal stressed how important prudence is in this business. So, in trying to make a decision this morning I figured I should just stick with my original plan to just make $80/day. That would create an income of $20,000 for the year. (Still, being at this since June, I haven’t been able to make anything, even though I do make some profits but I also lose just as much.)

But enough about my profits and losses because in the final analysis I am once again reminded that what I think this industry is--is not. When I started this post this morning, and not knowing this was the very same guy I saw on the Bloomberg interview, I was thinking this guy is one more greedy guy. I was reminded how excessive it is when I read this type of news; how much money losers make when you work with the big boys.

I am still going to use O'Neal's philosophy too because I respected it when I first heard him and I respect it now. Maybe Merrill and most investors aren't so patient or maybe there are things about this story I don't understand, which is highly probable.

This morning as I pondered that interview a few weeks ago, I had the sense that in the end, it will pay off. I’m sure there’s more to it though, as noted in the WSJ article I linked above, regarding the credit fiasco banks are going through and the Securities and Exchange Commission's investigations into wrong doing. Whose wrong doing it is though I don't know and I will look into that and maybe save it for another post as this one is dragging on too long.

And in the final analysis, I know there’s so much I don’t know. That's about all I really know. There’s still so much to learn. Sometimes I just want to quit. In fact, for the last week and a half I have just turned away from it because it became overwhelming. But last night I had a dream that made me sense that I need to get back to it. But that’s neither here nor there and though O’Neal is black and some suggest that he’s being treated poorly because he’s black, I still know that $161.5 million is a lot no matter what color or gender you are.

That he’s being ousted possibly because he had losses in the third quarter may be a racial issue, as Keri suggests. Still, I remember a few peon jobs where I definitely increased profits and you can be sure I didn’t get anything when they wanted new blood in the company. And that's another thing I know: this may be more to do with the huge gap between the rich and the rest of us peons.

Anyway, my head is hurting already and the market hasn’t even opened. I need to get back to looking into what I’m going to do today and let the big-time players hack out whether they think it’s fair to oust someone with a $161.5 million severance package. I’m clearly out of their league.

Maybe just for good measure, I will spike my coffee this morning with some B& B, a blend of Benedictine liqueur and French cognac. I think I should sit in the last rays of Indian Summer sun with some homemade honey sweetened oatmeal with local Empire apples and cinnamon. (I may get out of my pajamas in an hour or so.) I think too it’s a good time to read the next chapter in former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s book titled, "The Age of Turbulence; Adventures in a New World.”

Life is sweet♥



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[Update Nov.4, 11:07 a.m.: According to my print version of the Nov. 3 Barron's Review & Preview, page 18, "O'Neal is leaving after a $2.24 billion quarterly loss; some analysts say Merrill faces a $4 billion writedown in the fourth quarter."]

An Unusual Pilgrim’s Progress

Wow! I can not believe how much I did not know about money and what it really means to our society and to all societies and to me and I can not believe how much I have learned, just in this short period of time.

I also can not believe why or how Jack thinks I’m intelligent, now that I’m learning what he has known all along. Sometimes I think he was just kidding about loving me. I know he’s not and I know he values greatly my other type of intelligence, but geeesh!

Sometimes, it must take him all his strength to resist shaking his head when it comes to the way I have acted regarding money, and all my attendant anxieties surrounding money. I surely have only seen the tip of the iceberg but already I can feel that horrible fear I always have—every time a bill comes in the mail, even though I have plenty of money to pay the bill—begin to fade.

It is actually joy to begin to see how I can finally free myself from this tremendous fear that has gripped me my entire life. It is surprising to recognize the level of disdain I’ve had for money and its management and for no apparent reason, now that I am starting to replace all those demons with simple and realistic facts and information.

A burden is lifting off my shoulders, a burden I have been carrying unaware for a long long time. It reminds me of Pilgrim’s Progress, which I read years and years ago and which is one of Mark’s (my second son) favorite story. The main character in the story lugs around a terribly gigantic pack weighing down his back for years and years without recognizing that he doesn’t need to carry this load.

Of course, that story is about finding God so who would have thought this burden on my back could be analogous to a story about finding God and salvation? And the funny thing is that it has nothing to do with the stock trading or increasing my capital as I am still breaking even and just a little below my red line, but it’s because all these institutions and indicators of economic health have always been such a mystery to me—a complete and total mystery to me. I actually feel like I’m beginning to see the light. LOL!