Nov 2016 – sillysocksonfriday

Giving Thanks

These are my thoughts too – better written by you!

“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” – Tecumseh

It’s easy sometimes to overlook everything that we have to be thankful for. We are quick to get bogged down in the minutiae of living, what we classify as an ordinary and dull existence. We simply take the life we have for granted. We compare it to the post we see from our “friends” on Facebook. But we forget that they are only showing us the good parts. There are people all over the world, and in our own backyard, that would trade our boring lives for the life they are experiencing and living right at this moment.

In Chattanooga, TN., five children were killed in…

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Angst, Ennui and Weltschmertz: Petrol of Inertia

Angst is a type of anxiety that arises in response to nothing in particular, or the sense of nothingness itself. It’s not exactly fear and not the same as worry, but a simple fact of the human condition, a feeling that disrupts peace and contentment for no definable reason.

The mood has flitted through my mind from time to time.

Ennui i i-have-ennui s defined as a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction with connotations of self-indulgent posturing and European decadence. Just a bit frilly for me, like a lace handkerchief splashed with cologne, pressed to the brow. fainting-by-nos

Weltschmerz describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is. Just a bit too saintly and clear cut for me.

My angst is that these feelings predominate amongst those that drove stalled the inert middle of the electorate in recent events, allowing the radical fringes to climb to the top of the dunghill and proclaim the virtues of their causes!

So the solutions, and it is not too late, are to exchange the cologne on the hanky for sal volatile to clear the ennui, energise the angsters and a kick in the weltschmerz for the others to get them moving.

You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.”- Yogi Berra

I am grateful to Arika Okrent (lovely name) for some enlightenment on occasional moods and the gift of lovely words.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58230/how-tell-whether-youve-got-angst-ennui-or-weltschmerz

Are we headed for chaos?

In recent times, chaos has attained a hallowed status through simplistic argument that it is a necessity for the rectification of society. In other words: everything is so fucked up, nothing can be fixed, so let’s break it down and begin again.

putin-mh17 There are some very wild cards now in play in global politics. They are not who might be called gentlemen. I would call them loose cannons, who have abundant egos, few scruples and Messianistic delusions.

Most of them have some significant weapons to play with and some are itching to play with them.

duterte Then there are the others who are really nihilists and anarchists who have been fighting the world for some time. islam-co-exist

The electoral middle fingers that have been jabbed into the longstanding beacons of western democracy, Britain and the United States, and the Establishment in general, signal a strong swing to the ugly-middle-finger right. Circle those wagons, don’t let any strangers near…

Governments heeding that finger will effect shrinkage in unrestrained freedom; liberal causes and fair go will be shelved for a while. There will be a lot more of: Do what I say and shut your mouth or we will shut it for you.

The policeman’s boots are going to get bigger.

Freedom of speech and the truth are always casualties in times of trouble.

It is sad but real: history has shown us again and again – in practice, we are not peaceful and fellow human loving by nature.

The pendulum swings back and forth… history repeats.

Read Tobias Stone’s article:

https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.v8mm4ygc9

View at Medium.com

Toned down

'I think I'm going deaf - I can't hear the horse whisperer.' My deafness began 35 odd years ago when I parted my hair with a rifle bullet. Not deliberately of course, but carelessly, following the dictates of my empty belly and breakfast waiting on the table.

During the Rhodesian bush war, it was the norm on farms to carry weapons in case of terrorist attack. In my haste I had left my loaded G3 rifle next to my bed, then remembered, so went to make it safe.

Sitting on the bed, I followed the usual process: unlatching the magazine, I cleared the round in the breech, released the safety catch and leaning forward with the barrel next to my head, pulled the trigger to ease the tension on the spring.

The magazine had not properly detached and a second round had fed into the breech, unnoticed.

The detonation was very loud and I looked up to see a hole in the roof, then down as the farmer’s wife came screeching along the passage from her bath, thinking it was an attack!

I had felt the bullet blast through the hair on the left of my head and could only hear a loud ringing, which continued for some time. We had a nervous laugh and finished breakfast. The farmer’s lady got dressed.

My hearing returned gradually and I was a star turn at the club that day, demonstrating my ability to whistle through my ears. That was the beginning of my gradual deafness.

Being hard of hearing made Ursula every pharmacy customer's worst nightmare. In about 2002, my children and wife’s complaints sent me to an audiologist and a set of hearing aids, which I used desultorily. They rusted up and were useless by 2010.

When we moved to Australia, I sought work in a call centre, so felt the need to get new aids – very expensive. But I lost the job and didn’t get another one, so petulantly ignored my hearing aids.

My friends with characteristic kindness speak up when addressing me, but I miss a lot of the asides and others’ chats; I also turn the TV sound way up. So I have started to use my hearing aids again.

They are not perfect despite 2 settings, and some 'I'm really beginning to feel my age, Lou. Irene used the can opener today and I didn't even hear it.' sounds are piercingly sharp, while others remain indistinct. One of my children and two of my daughters’ partners mumble, another lisps, my wife and the other two children are soft spoken.

A much more serious aspect is that I am an easy sleeper, my wife is not. We have a new puppy who wails in the night. Sometimes our blue ring neck parakeet shrieks for seeds and I miss that too. It’s all tinnitus to me, but my wife gets up. I would if I heard, but I don’t. I have asked her to wake me to attend to our little princess.

I have tended to withdraw a wee bit of late, which has alarmed my children as I usually have plenty to say. It’s just that I am uncomfortable continuously seeking repetition.

Quite naturally people forget or find coherent conversation difficult … and so it goes.

As John Milton put it, it’s a mild yoke. free-state-drakensberg-evening

In compensation, I find that my appreciation of colour has increased immensely: sunrise, sunset, plumage, flowers and autumn leaves all make me gush – that really makes people smile at my foibles.

So that is why I am a wee bit quieter these days.