My faith tells me I will see you again Though every step forward leaves you behind You are finally free of heartbreak and pain But I measure mine in everything I find
I must abandon you, to keep the comfort of my grief On the road ahead, I will greet my ghosts Keep watching over me, such is our belief Although you are far away, please keep me close
Inspired, again, by the Red Hand Files #354, where Nick Cave responds to someone who lost their wife to cancer, aged 30.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
How Can You Know Whether You’ve Never Been Tested?
A life that never met misfortune One that has never been put to the test How can one judge their real value Having never struggled to do their best?
It’s a long way from the telling, the whisperings diffused on the breezes; Reverence paid to ghosts; a tabla-rasa written as the parent pleases.
Early chapters of setting scenes, a paragraph guide to maintain flow. So repeated as new calendars came, a belief from which love cannot grow.
The current arc pleads for understanding, yet fails to question its own morality. The here and now, where others live, holding on to their own stories of humanity.
Whatever it is, it’s just a story.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Perfection Is The Enemy Of Action
Splitting gets us nowhere fast That all-or-nothing distortion Progress over perfection contrast Don’t get it out of proportion
God, I’ve got a nose to pick with you. Are you listening to my angry prayer? A few fucks in front of the altar? It’s not like you’ve never heard me swear.
My reverent heresy is born from The institution blindly followed. To commit their violence in your name Fed on half-truths, easily swallowed.
Shared with Tanka Tuesday – oxymoron but mine is just a nine-syllable quatrain. I got my challenges mixed up.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Peace Is In Staying The Course
Riding the waves of acceptance and rejection Tranquillity does not wander in every direction
I wrote this while sitting in a cafe with many tourists coming and going. A scenario ran through my head that someone might come and ask me what I’m doing. How would I answer this question?
I thought the best answer might be that I was playing a game. This game involves finding words and sentences of a particular length with specific rhymes as well as adequately conveying a message for the reader. What do you win? Well, the fun is in the playing, not the prize.
The title comes from the drug dealer’s motto in The Wire. It seems everything is a game; serious or not.
O. – I’m in guitar attack mode at the moment and this is too electronic sounding to me. I like the production for this style of music but I need more dirty guitar grunge at the moment. I’m going to listen to this one again later – I think it might grab when I’m in the right mood.
Fat Dog – This is pretty cool but I don’t like it when they go into the gothy-electro-dance parts. Not for me really.
URNE – I kinda like a lot of metal of all varieties until there is vocals. I like loud music with vocals more than without but I can’t get into a lot of growl/grunting or something like URNE when they get into operatic emo style. It just ruins it. Love the music though. I don’t know what kind of vocals would work with this style of music either.
The Headhunters – I wouldn’t mind watching this live at a cool jazz venue but never gonna sit and listen to it at home.
Nubya Garcia – I understand why jazz folks would like this. Again, not something that I would listen to.
The Natural Yogurt Band – no loud guitars! Not for me!
mockART – no loud guitars! Not for me! Not today anyway. I like it when it has a more restrained Matmos feel.
Combat Astronomy – no loud guitars! But at least some gnarly bass! And a slight Thinking Plague connection helps. I don’t think that I would buy this but I will listen again. I quickly listened to their most recent album and that sounds great too.
TISM – Despite being in Australia during the TISM heyday I never heard much more than their couple of ‘hits’ which I enjoyed but never thought to check out anything else by them. Obviously talented musicians and with a great sense of humour, sadly they just make me want to listen to I Spit On Your Gravy.
Buttress O’Kneel – Awesome execution of political cut-up/mash-up and a damning indictment of the Snakes of Agression. Not something that I’ll ever listen to though.
Marvel at the synchronicity I was just thinking about elephants But the cheapest form of miracle Is, in fact, just coincidence
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to be able to order little cables and things online from Lazada. So cheap and easy.
Damn, I feel good today. Stepping out of the cool aircon of the car and into the bright, humid heat felt like jumping into a cooling swimming pool, enveloped in something smothering the skin. The heat soon burns away the cool skin feeling but the engulfment remains. A soft warm cocoon around my body that finds its way into my brain receptors, bringing comfort and safety.
A relaxing wake up yet busy beginnings with bedclothes washing and cat feeding. I pushed through the punishing abs exercises again, jumped in the shower and headed off to Utopia for coffee, reading more of the Rolling Stones biography but somewhat unable to focus for long.
Back home, Amy had already started teaching her two students, first time in seven months. Now she will be busy most weekends again.
I secreted myself in my room, intending to practice guitar but got swept up in more poetry blog entries and listening to more live Mission of Burma recordings, which I have found at archive.org. Before I knew it, it was lunchtime.
A quick filling Pad Thai before setting off to the city for Amy to get her first vaccine shot. The blue skies of last week now replaced with the smoky white haze again as the farmers burn everything for the next forced season.
As I’m driving, my mouth is contemplating the creamy milky coffee at House. They’ve turned me onto a signature drink they call a Dirty. It’s cold, fresh milk mixed with a good lot of cream and then a long, extracted shot sits atop. You sip and slurp the creamy milk through the shot and it is damn delicious. The taste is throughout my mouth as I’m writing and I’m contemplating a second but shouldn’t. Keep it as a treat.
Not sure what the plan is next but I’m looking forward to getting back to my room and listening to more music and hopefully playing guitar.
Oh yeah, I squeezed in a haircut too – finally. My hair was getting out of control. Need to shave and dye my hair sometime this weekend too. Perhaps I can maintain the deceit of still looking under 50 years old as the 54th approaches.
The belief that this way is the best Completely fails when put to the test Just because it was always done this way Doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to stay
Instead of walking, why not run? There’s other ways to get things done People power can produce the change One day to find the old ways strange
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that all 3 of our cats are healthy again. It makes me smile inside to see them relaxed and playful.
Amy was tired yesterday after making two batches of cinnamon buns and was looking forward to resting today but just as she came to bed she got a message that Utopis sold out theirs immediately and wanted more! I chuckled and know she is also happy but not used to working on demand.
I’m looking forward to getting out for afternoon coffee and some book reading!
For greater glory, you did stand Confident in your beliefs Generals commanded sacrificial grunts Saying God commanded your chiefs
The glory brought riches and power For brief moments to enjoy Until a greater God has risen With further power to destroy
Oh, stupid war, you’re here again And more lives will be expended A challenge, then, to turn it around To see burned bridges mended
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for an extra 20 minutes of dosing (again) this morning – to have strange poetic dreams and semi-conscious thoughts to inspire the day.
I notice that I talk so little sometimes that when I do have something to say, I can’t stop myself – my mouth gets dry from saying so much. Right now, I’m finding I don’t have much to write here!
I’m in my online class with 2/11, and they (some of them at least) are busy doing writing and reading a short story. I’ve got these classes well organised and quite productive, I think. It’s difficult to ‘teach’ them anything much, so I’m just having them practice and revise as much as possible.
The upside for me is that there is not much for me to do in class, but I end up doing a lot of extra things for them outside of class. I also think some students don’t get it – they are expecting an hour or so of a teacher rambling on and then trying to figure out what they have to do. I’ll leave the talking to the Thai teachers – I want my students to learn the value of work and effort. It’s really divided my class up and I am learning a lot from it too.
image: making videos for students working from home
Sat at my desk in amongst the clutter to make it easier on my back and wrists. Reminds me of an old online friend who had a blog called ‘atmydesk’ – I think her name was Sara – some connection with Nomeansno – was thinking about my tattoo this morning for some reason or was it a dream “of a 6-foot woman”– listening to Heavy Vegetable and things on the weekend but now I wake up with the songs in my head. I’m bad at writing quickly these days and arm is sore from pen holding. Sweating on the clutter just a fan today no Aircon temp is perfect just sweat when moving. Neck is creaking after the very short workout – just warmup really but got my body out of slumber neck is really bad these days “6-foot woman” is stuck now. Amy rearranged plants around the house Tigger rolling around in the grass last night – all the cats seem really chilled these days – makes me so happy. Is my mind already empty? Just replaced with Rob Crow’s music. Don’t remember any dream – slept well – want to sleep more but energised now after warmup workout – don’t push it doesn’t matter – don’t stress about George telling you the best way to do something – it’s just his advice on his experience – it’s not a judgement on you and you can do it the way that you want. Going to offer more help to teachers today. Do they like me? Are they scared of me? Am I not approachable? If I’m thinking about it then – even if I am not these things I can still do something to be more those things right? Put thinking cap on today for video. Gonna be another good day today – just you see.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the cooler weather this morning. I felt more relaxed and happy.
To-do list
Try to join in more with the other teachers ½
In your mind – give positive vibes to everyone ½
Ask more questions for understanding
Breathing exercise for concentration ½
Random act of kindness
Today seemed to fly past – I managed to get my morning routine fully sorted and will try it again from tomorrow.
There were times today when I felt George was a little overbearing – this is about the way he talks sometimes as if what he says is always right. I think it’s just a mannerism and not necessarily the way he thinks. It was just particularly prominent today. I do envy his capacity to just stay happy all the time.
I’m stuck wondering if I should just be quiet and listen more or say what I really believe. This is questioning me to define what it is I actually believe – that’s a challenge.
I shouldn’t compare myself to him because his confidence and personality aren’t a gauge against my own. I shouldn’t feel down or upset because I’m not up to the same standard in comparison. This is a trait I need to remove. I need to remind myself about what I am good at. Why do I feel that I am not good at anything right now? Ugh.
What’s that quote about worrying too much about what other people think – they’re not thinking anything about you at all. So, I’m the only thing getting in the way of my own contentment. Tomorrow I want to reflect on that more.
I am so happy and grateful that we will go out today to take our cats to the vet.
Krishna descends to this planet every 8.6 billion years and this purpose is stated in Bhagarad-gita and we have to accept it as is; otherwise there is no point in trying to understand it!
Swami
To-do list
Finish one more lesson
Start that course – now is a good opportunity ½
I taught Bruce today though actually, I didn’t really teach him anything. We ended up talking about Chinese history and how things repeat themselves. I should try and talk to more people – though I don’t really need a high quota to be happy, I have to be aware that I don’t cut everyone off.
I talked with Hayden for a little while today too. He seems to be doing okay under the conditions of the lockdown in Australia.
I watched some of Joe Rogan’s interview with Andrew Yang about Universal Basic Income and I’m starting to consider Hayden’s attitude to work may serve him well in the future, maybe at least not wasting his time and energy on a career that leads nowhere or is made redundant by technology and automation. He still needs to master himself in self-motivation and hard work for himself though.
I’m still confused about my own direction in continuing teaching at the moment. If we move to online teaching it will remove one of the things that I enjoy about teaching and that is the connection I have with the students.
And why waste time working hard when this virus could just stop me dead at any time? If we have only a year left, do I want to spend it in the frustrations of this teaching system? But I guess I shouldn’t be thinking like that (and I am still, very slowly, preparing lessons).
I am so happy and grateful to have so many options available to keep me entertained.
What we believe means nothing. How we act is what it’s all about.
Eckhart Tolle
To-do list
Just Dance in the morning ✅
More CD sorting
Record another TCRAH ✅
Meditate ✅
Think before writing and speaking ✅
Well, doing Just Dance in the morning definitely had a positive effect, made Amy laugh and gave us some exercise. It was a good start to the day. We’ll do it again tomorrow.
I spent most of the day in my room whilst Amy was happily drinking inside – she got the dancing mood later in the evening but then got a little teary as she was thinking about our cats, 2 of whom are approaching the end of their lives. We really love them and it will be sad when they go. But we can go at any time.
I’m feeling more in control of my emotions currently, perhaps because I’m not surrounded by the gossip and chatter at school. It’s very tempting just to quit doing it but I feel I should just keep pushing myself and improve myself. I can’t keep making the same mistakes and expect things to change.
1994ever 