The ‘pattern of all patience’ is not to ‘say nothing’ but to ask and expect nothing.

This blog prompt is almost identical to a earlier one (see my answer here at this link). The title there was: What is the greatest gift someone could give you? Put yourself in a prompter’s shoes! What difference did they see in the prompts? Well, first, the question asked then for a chosen ‘one’ out … More The ‘pattern of all patience’ is not to ‘say nothing’ but to ask and expect nothing.

‘You find me fallen back for a spring, and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result’. Even when we are rich in time and capacity for thought and feeling, why do we tend to be so miserly with it?

Budgets are, you might think, something business corporations or Governments have. In both cases they balance real or expected (or predicted) income or revenue against real or expected (or predicted) expenditure in order to be able to plan to meet their goals whilst remaining fiscally in the balance, over at least an acceptable period of … More ‘You find me fallen back for a spring, and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result’. Even when we are rich in time and capacity for thought and feeling, why do we tend to be so miserly with it?

Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’, but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt.

Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’ (as are many others – it is actually a misquotation of lawman Dogberry in Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’), but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt. I was born in 1954. The law was part of a vast symbolic … More Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’, but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Or do they?

There are good reasons for avoiding this question. I am 70, but though there is roughly a 21 year gap between my birth date and that of my parents, that gap matters so little now they are gone. At 70, they were though still doing line-dancing and facing the world in retirement. Yet, as I … More “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Or do they?

Handling the Trump syndrome: Never allow anyone the power to make or change law on their own

The Executive Order in the US Constitution allows one man (there’d never yet been a woman) to make Executive Orders with the force of law. Donald Trump signed 36 during his first week in Office. The possession in one person to make or change law is not thought of as possible in the idea of … More Handling the Trump syndrome: Never allow anyone the power to make or change law on their own

Do houses dream of being home and not their posesion by evil?

They say that I am hauntedBut let’s see if that’s the truth.People think their dreams come downFrom their hard-tiled attic roof,Which is what they call their brainsNot up from the dark cellarsWhere hide the things they dare not See: that can’t be flushed down drains.Truth is, some men have bad dreams,Ride night-mares through woods at … More Do houses dream of being home and not their posesion by evil?

Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

I get some news!The first thing IDo, without thoughtApparentlyIs carelesslyInterpret it. News that you receive oft takes a moment to interpret. Is it good? is it bad? Or is it somewhere in between. Perhaps the news contains a mixture of good, bad, or nuanced degrees between positive and negative interpretation as well as a mixture … More Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

Now here’s a blog prompt that I never ever thought I would answer. My usual recourse to etymology to find a nuance in the question has already reached a block. In the UK we use the term ‘candy’, only because we see and hear the word in USA cultural imports, The UK word for candy … More ‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

Let’s break from tradition but only so we and the status quo can keep on going on, and on, and on … as they are.

Let’s break from tradition, but only so we can go on, and on, and … and the status quo can keep on going on as it is.  The thing about words is that, as I keep endlessly and no doubt obseesively repeating in these blogs, they not only change their meaning but also preserve the … More Let’s break from tradition but only so we and the status quo can keep on going on, and on, and on … as they are.

I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so?

I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so? The occasion of ‘sport’, even a too frequent use of the word, does cause me discomfort and I have no explanation of this beyond that I felt as a young … More I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so?

The limits of ‘Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway’ can be felt standing at a cliff-edge!

Susan Jeffers’s book, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action, is by now a kind of holy text of popular psychology, used not only, as it was intended, at first at least, to address anxiety that locks people into extremely limited lives but to … More The limits of ‘Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway’ can be felt standing at a cliff-edge!