Geoff and Tom on April

The other day I posted a tweet that was perhaps a little opaque.
Basically I was thinking of this:

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Memory and desire, stirring

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Dull roots with spring rain.

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Winter kept us warm, covering

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

A little life with dried tubers.

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

And smale fowles maken melodye,

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

That slepen al the night with open ye,

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Zemanta (part 2)

Image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten via FlickrStrangely, having said that Zemanta wasn't doing anything at all, the little orange rectangle on the side of this page has now turned into a panel of suggested pictures and articles, with some suggested links down near the bottom of this page. It looks as though I have to type 300 characters (don't know if that includes html for links etc) before it comes up with suggestions, but lo and behold I now have some suggested things to add to my blog post, so I'm going to click on them and see what happens.

Related articles

• Zemanta - A content suggestion engine for blogging [via Zemanta]
• Zemanta - Content Suggestion for Bloggers [via Zemanta]

Creme that egg!

OK, I know that it's slightly late for Easter, but it's good to see this kind of ingenuity at any time of year.

A Monday lunchtime thought

I have always mocked and talked disparagingly about people who win the lottery jackpot and say things like "I'll still go to work" or "It won't really change me", until I had a bit of an insight during counselling this morning. People who win a large amount and immediately give up work and move house are making a statement about their level of connection and commitment to their work and their community; the chances are that they have bought a lottery ticket because they are dissatisfied with their life and think that winning a large sum of money will make their life better. People who win a large amount but stay put (with some changes: more expensive holidays, buying houses for their children, etc) are also making a statement about their level of commitment to their work and community; it's likely that, along with the rest of the human race, they have had things they don't like about their life; the difference is that they have invested time and effort into finding a productive and satisfying job and/or a group of friends and becoming part of a community.

From this point of view, people who have invested in and engaged with their life are winners whether they have a lucky lottery ticket or not; people who are looking to the lottery to provide them with a whole new life may be losers even if they win.

Heroes series 1 in 210 seconds

Guns N' Roses

The last.fm blog has a post on their efforts to clean up metadata, especially where there are areas of contention - asking, for instance, how many ways there are to spell "Guns N' Roses - Knockin' on heaven's door" (they have a list of the top 100 ways!). They also have a list of the various tags for band name on Guns N' Roses mp3s here: familiar reading for anyone who's ever downloaded music less-than-legally (I'm told), but worth reading down to the bottom of the list!

Prophecy?

It has occurred to me a couple of times to think more closely about the tunes that get stuck in my head, especially when it's not a tune I've heard recently, or if it's something that keeps on for days, even if I listen to other stuff. What's interesting is that if I've stopped to think "What is this about? What is this saying to me?" then often the tune drops out of my head. Now I don't know if it matters if I think that this is a message from God or from my subconscious (or even if those have to be two separate things*), but maybe I should think more about stuff that just pops up in my head.

As an example, I've been reading N T Wright's "Following Jesus" and have been really struck by lots of passages (too many to quote here), especially ideas on fear and temptation, and how God's love provides the security we need in order to be able to follow Jesus. And the bit of tune that I've had stuck in my head these last few days?

"Every day, it's getting closer, moving faster than a rollercoaster
Love like yours will surely come my way".

My God is so cool, he uses Buddy Holly songs to speak prophetic words.

*Umm... I don't mean that my subconscious is God, or anything wild and scary like that, just that there is no reason why God can't use the stuff I'm already carrying around in my head to attract my attention

Zemanta

I've downloaded a Firefox plug-in from Zemanta. Apparently it makes adding pictures and links to blog posts simple, intuitive and fun. So far it's not done anything - but on the other hand I'm typing this at work, and the network is currently very slow, so maybe I'll just save this to draft and give it another go later.

Update: now at home, two days later, and all I've got is a pale orange rectangle next to the Blogger composition area. I am officially underwhelmed.

Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts

Go here. Watch the video clips. Watch the TV programmes (starts 9pm 22nd April, BBC3).

Nothing else to say about this.

Self-Improvement

I have discovered a great way to put off addressing personal issues: read about how to deal with personal issues. Your local library or bookshop will have dozens, if not hundreds of titles on improving your relationships, your emotional intelligence, your productivity; if you start looking online you'll never get to the end of all the web pages and blog posts about self-improvement, from the stirring and inspiring to the wacky and plagiarised. You can find quotations, exhortations, bullet points and diagrams, podcasts, animations and fifteen-step guides, all pointing you towards the new, improved and all-around better you. And if you think it's not for you, think again: everybody can benefit! And if you're not sure you deserve all these riches: you are a beautiful, unique and worthwhile person. And if it's all a bit too scary: hey, just feel the fear and do it anyway!

There is no alternative to the idea that I must want my life to improve. Why wouldn't I? I can overcome (with help) my fear and low self-esteem, improve my energy levels and de-clutter my life, until I no longer have any reason or excuse not to make my life better and better.

Don't get me wrong. Lots of this stuff is useful, and most of the time I'd like to feel better and happier. Some of the time I'd even be prepared to work for that goal. But sitting and thinking about how great my life could be, or how great it ought to be, is as unproductive and unhelpful as thinking how miserable my life is; sitting looking at cookery books when you're hungry doesn't fill your stomach.

Because all the major problems of the world have been sorted

This just makes me sad.

Theodore Roosevelt

Another pointed Roosevelt quotation: “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

I've been reading a couple of Art of Manliness articles (here and here) about Roosevelt, and I have to say I do like his style. I'd heard the story before of him being shot in the chest, reassuring himself that it wasn't going to be fatal and going on to give a 90 minute speech, but although I agree with the commenter on one of the articles that it "makes me tired just reading about him", he's a pretty darn inspirational guy.

The Procrastinator's Creed

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.
2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.
3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.
4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.
5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.
6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.
7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.
8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.
9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.
10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.
11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.
12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.
13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.
14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.

Discovered on Wisdomquotes.com

Cheap GPS

From XKCD

++ Out Of Brain Error ++

Went over to the library to borrow some CDs. Thought, "It's a lovely day, I'll leave my coat in the office." Walked over to the library. It was, indeed, lovely weather. Got to the library. Returned last week's CDs. Browsed round the shelves. Thought "It's a lovely day, so I left my coat in the office... with my library card in the pocket."

The sooner we all get microchips implanted in our heads the better.

Work, necessity of

I saw a card yesterday that said "So you hate your job? Did you know there's a support group for that? It's called 'Everyone'. We meet at the bar." It quite amused me, and reminded me that not enjoying work is not a sign of underlying pathology (if everybody has the same pathology, that's referred to as 'being human'.) Along with my recent thoughts on procrastination I've also been thinking about how I feel about work in general. Now I have to admit that I've never been convinced by statements about the nobility of work; generally I tend to see the advantages of not doing anything much. But, to get all dialectical for a moment, it is possible that I've learned my attitude to inactivity by growing up in a society where work is the norm and time off is to be prized, and by living in a small house with many children, where there is never a shortage of things that need doing. So sitting around not doing much isn't necessarily good in itself, but seems an attractive proposition when contrasted with doing lots and lots all the time. Somewhere along the line I think I slipped over into doing-nothing-much-is-a-good-thing-in-itself land, where leisure, rest and downright indolence are an alternative to work, rather than a complement to work.

This seems important in a way that's hard to pin down.

In Bridge to Terabithia there's a quote that's attributed to Teddy Roosevelt: "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." Work worth doing? Gosh, define that. Worth doing by whose standards? If mine, then does anyone else have to agree with me? If not mine, then is that really the "best prize"? And I've not even got started on "working hard". So I would love to dismiss statements like this as the kind of propaganda that keeps the proletariat enslaved, but there is something that it stirs in me, something that suggests maybe I was created to work, that happiness is not sitting by a stream all day, not even sitting there until I feel completely ready to go and get on with the working week, but is maybe closer to sitting by a stream on one day, after enough of the work for the week has been done.

Procrastination

I'm becoming increasingly fed up with myself for not getting things done. There are lots of reasons behind this, which is one of the things I've been talking about in counselling sessions recently (which may be why I'm getting more frustrated about it), but more often than not it comes down to a simple choice not to do something. There may be all kinds of payoffs for inaction (or alternative, displacement action) and there may be complex and longstanding learned behaviours at work; it may well be the case that I choose not to do something that will be boring or unpleasant; still when the moment comes when I could do something, I make the choice not to do it.

Maybe I should use this blog (or now that I'm into microblogging, use Twitter) to record some successes - things I actually get done - and give myself some positive reinforcement.