I wrote this about eighteen months ago and just edited it a bit.
Good luck, remember the film 'Jumanji'....
This all follows on from the story of 'The Naked Country'.
Actually there are many different endings and twists to this story.
I can change it anywhere I like, and give it a different meaning. I can tell the story entirely from one characters perspective, or like in this version switch the narrative of the story from the King, to the ugly daughter. So can you, it’s a fairy tale, a made up story.
Just in case psychiatry is your thing, Prince charming is my Husband; The King is my Father, and the Stepmother and her two daughters the world order. The seven Dwarfs are my emotions and as a collective how I choose to interact with myself and the world.
My previous psychiatrist treated me as an idiot savant. One of his registrars told me one day ‘the world needs its avatars’. My current psychiatrist and CPN are concerned for my physical and mental balance. Currently we have agreed for me to have a trial period without mood stabilizers. The idea is that we are ground breaking; using our relationships of trust to help me deal with Bi-Polar disorder. This involves a high degree of monitoring my mood, and how I handle my physical existence.
(I did try this out, but I am better taking the medication).
There are many morals to the ‘King Who Wore No Clothes’ story it depends on who you identify with! Having been the subject of a scam myself, I made this version of the story up to help me get over losing about £15,000,00 on an in-salon TV scam. Plus the extra electricity I paid every month for three years to run 4 of the seven TV screens I bought. When I finally turned them off, my electric bill at the salon dropped by about £300 per quarter!
My moral of this story for business and money; A ‘concept product’ is one that you can’t see or touch, and only has value if you can convince someone else to believe in it too.
The moral of the King’s story is that; Life is full of ‘naked truth’ moments. You can choose to ignore them or acknowledge them. However both have consequences.
Thy Kingdom or mine?
I can choose to live in your ‘Kingdom’ or my ‘Kingdom’ I can visit you in your Kingdom for a change, or you can visit mine.
Before we have established our own Kingdom, we are prisoners in other peoples. (Countries are where people’s bodies reside).
I call my home ‘The kingdom of Heaven’, other people say I live in ‘Utopia’, and suffer with bouts of ecstasy, which is when I go into a private clinic because even my Husband can’t cope with it. I used to be a prisoner in the kingdom you live in, until my Prince Charming managed to come up with a rescue plan called ‘retirement’. You might take ecstasy tablets, or other drugs to visit my kingdom.
My brain produces large but fluctuating quantities of serotonin and dopamine. I often have to take inhibitors, which are drugs designed to stop the receptors in my brain from working.
I will give you examples of what I understand as concept products.
For instance your Bank balance is a concept product! Once you put your money in the bank it becomes a concept. The piece of plastic you carry around is your ‘Hanger’. When you realize money has no value; only the goods and services you choose to exchange for it, will you get the hang of the money ‘concept’.
That’s why the proverb ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’; money of itself has no real value.
Even £50 notes are just printed paper! It’s only because you and I agree that it has a representative value, compared to other currencies, or products, and services, that we agree to exchange bits of colored paper, and pay huge amounts of service on our point of sale machines. (And personal banking!).
The business banking system is such that to bank cash and cheques, costs me far more than processing your payment through a card machine. It also costs a lot to withdraw cash, and my team’s preference is to be paid in cash on a weekly basis. It’s a hairdresser thing.
Never mind, you might have a lot of fabulous coat hangers to hang your ideas on! My coat hanger in this ‘scam’ was the TV screens, the ‘concept’ was the idea I would be paid for adverts the company would place on my screens to provide me with revenue. I still think it is a good idea, but this was a scam. There were no paying adverts, no revenues, and a non existent contract which I was supposed to have, and signed but was never produced, only referred to.
I signed a credit check form with my fountain pen so it couldn't be scanned, but I still got nabbed!
This contract was like the one that was made for hotels when they installed radios and rented TVs in their rooms many years ago. It was a permanent license agreement that needed to be bought out of! I can tell you that thousands of Hair salons have been caught up in this scam, and it has put many salon owners in financial chaos, and caused terrible heartache and personal recriminations.
I paid a lot of money to learn this lesson; I now stick to things that have an intrinsic value for investments, in fact I don’t actually do anything to make money.
I try to do, make or re-sell things that have a value to someone else.
That value may only be represented by a ‘thank you’, or something someone else wants to respond with. Our friends give us a huge amount of things, because they don’t know what to do with their surplus. I have no problem keeping what I want, and giving the rest to charity shops, or putting into charity raffles. It seems the more I give away, the more comes my way!
I also realized when I wrote the 'Naked Country Story' that we all believe in what we choose, but for the most part have been conditioned by the society around us to conform. When our every fiber can’t conform; we become ill, either mentally or physically, and yes I am the ugly princess in the story!
What is Reassession?
‘Reassession’ is a word I kind of made up from the word reassess; a verb meaning to reconsider the value or importance of.
In this economic climate we are reassessing what is important to us. What has value to us and why. However without a strong sense of intrinsic worth for people who provide services in the private sector; like Hairdressers, beauticians, alternative therapists butchers greengrocers etc. we could be in real danger of completely wrecking the whole merry go round ride of prosperity and perceived value, and lose one of the best ‘feel good tonics’ ever designed by humanity, interactive shopping!
We are used to the word recession. In strict definition this means a period of reduction in trade. This causes grave repercussions in the economy, as the tax structure is based on projected trade figures. Governments have to cut spending, or raise taxes. Businesses have to cut the costs of operating their enterprise. This may mean that their employees have to be laid off, or quality of their produced merchandise lowered to make it affordable when people have less disposable income, or services streamlined to make them more cost effective.
Unfortunately during recession a company may lose its skill base of competent employees. It means that companies who provide training for sectors such as hairdressing can’t afford to invest in training new staff, and employing the very young people who need to have work, to become fulfilled and mature. This is a normal ebb and flow of a free market economic system.
Occasionally, a ‘tipping point’ is reached. This could also be thought of as a ‘crisis point’, rather like the moment your child’s swing starts coming back to you. You are either ready for the next ‘cushion and push’, or it hits you in the back of the head because you weren’t paying attention.
When I say ‘cushion and push’ I mean that you allow your hands to meet the seat of the swing, just as it slows down to its highest arc, allow your hands to feel it come to a standstill, and then give a guiding push down to keep the momentum going.
That’s what being in business is like to me, sending my ‘baby’ giggling off on a journey through time and space, until its time to give another little push. When my baby is big enough, I expect it to put a lot more of its own effort into the process. Lets face it even if you love a swing as much as I do, there are times you want to be swinging yourself, times you want to be pushed, and times you need to take turns and push someone else!
The financial crisis we are in, caught us all unawares rather like the great storm of 1987 in Europe.
People warned the countries in its path it was coming, but everyone thought it would blow itself out before it got to them. Metaphorically we all got hit in the head with the swing. We all suffered ‘financial concussion’ and we have all been recovering from the physical and mental trauma.
Everyone has been hit. Some got hit harder than others and were immediately ‘knocked out’. Most of us have been living in a stupefied haze of worry, not knowing how to handle the shockwaves. They have been rather like a massive tsunami, followed by further smaller tsunami events.
In order to shore up each other’s economic credibility, Governments have had to promise each other years of trading commitments, and tax revenues to re-establish a credible value to their own currency. This has given certain wealthy countries unprecedented power over poorer countries. We (Britain) only just finished paying off our war debt from World War Two to the Americans in the last decade. Now we owe them approximately 20, maybe 30 years of trading and tax revenue to pay off the ‘loan’ we have secured to shore up our countries credibility with the rest of the world. The daft thing is, they are bankrupt, and so are we! What they have promised each other is that we will continue to consume each others manufactured and exported products.
It’s interesting that what has just happened also happened in 17th century France. That’s why the French don’t throw their money about. (It has nothing to with the French Revolution!) Although I must re-visit French history, it might have been one of the contributing factors.
I have stolen a link! http://mises.org/daily/4814
Living in France part time is a whole new education! The politics, social system, technical mindset, appreciation of the Arts, and the way the news is pitched is very refreshing.
The French don’t dumb down anything they expect a high level of education and get it. They expect family cohesion, and live it. When a social problem has become significant they protest.
Currently as I write French Farmers are up in arms because the EU has cancelled the milk quota. This means they turn up with a tanker of milk, only to be turned away if its not needed, or bought at a hugely undervalued price to ‘take it off their hands’. This is because right now, if the price of anything is ‘fixed’ it is not allowing currency exchange to float. If you understand chaos theory or economics it will make sense.
Thank God for French Farmers, that’s what I say. They will get something sorted out that will have a more effective control on the gaping hole in our free falling economic hot air balloon than any sticking plaster Gordon Brown and his cronies will have tried to stitch us up with. Fix the price of French milk and we suddenly have an economic standard by which everything else is valued. By the way, the French think Hairdressers are the lowest of the low as well!
Our UK government has committed us and our children and grandchildren when they come of working age, to consuming something we don’t particularly want to buy, but have to, in order to preserve our national pride and national identity – our currency!
Oh, and by the way you and I are still locked into a free market economy whether we like it or not. The politicians say it’s good for us!
(N.B Just adding this as a reminder that the section in the Bible that deals with economics sets a value on a days work, the price of corn ... It is a vey good model!)
What happened when we all got hit in the head with the swing is that, when we came round we suddenly found ourselves on a different planet. We are in a new reality. One where consumer choices are beginning to make a difference to the way big companies produce goods, and how public services are being administered. Many more of us are also beginning to demand accountability from those who make political decisions for us.
For instance I just popped out in the space between these two paragraphs, to get a pint of milk and something for my dinner.
I decided at the butcher’s counter I wanted an organic, free- range chicken even though there wasn’t one on display.
I should explain here that I buy quality food. That doesn’t necessarily mean expensive!
I can buy something that makes a cheap meal like pasta and use my neighbor’s own home made tomato sauce which I was very kindly given, (which I had Monday night).
Or a free range organic chicken that has more compact lean meat, good flavor and doesn’t shrink to the size of a pea when I cook it for tonight. I also like to think my meal had a nice life before it landed on my plate. I usually find a small chicken of this kind will feed me generously four times, and five if I make soup from it as well. I don’t buy a more expensive option unless I think its value for money.
Your opinion will naturally be different, but I am exercising my own preference, my spending ‘voice’. People may not want to listen to me, or read this stuff, (or buy anything from me). However I affect everybody by my spending voice.
My Butcher said ‘Sorry no free range, sold out’, but he did have a growth hormone, and antibiotic free bird. I was intrigued. He gave me the label to read and said ‘what’s even better, it’s British’! I would have preferred Jersey free range; it wouldn’t have had to fly so far.
He showed me a fresh-in-this-morning bird of just over three pounds in weight. It was compact, looked a good color and he assured me the meat was similar to a free to roam bird.
I immediately clocked up that it had a chance to mature slowly and run around a bit, and didn’t have nasty chemicals or a lot of water injected into it, so I said ‘Ill take it home with me, here’s my plastic, help yourself to some concept’, (to which he gave me an odd look).
During this process my butcher said ‘Isn’t it great we consumers have got so much power these days. The TV chefs are the ones who are making us rethink our buying habits’. ‘Funny you should mention it’, I replied. ‘I’m writing about it’!
It cost £6.82 for five high quality protein meals. By the time I have cooked and frozen four of the portions different ways, and eaten the one I am planning on tonight, I estimate each meal including vegetables will cost me £2.50. That’s 2 weeks supply of high quality protein for me, or one week for both of us. Yep, I am in business, I have an internal calculator that immediately reduces everything to unit cost! The fact I can put the surplus portions in the freezer for a quick meal as well is very handy, and a good use of my leisure time to enjoy preparing them.
You can either reassess consciously as I described my chicken purchase, or unconsciously the way I simply wanted to buy my skincare cheaper but get the same product. In the chicken’s favor was a conscious choice that I knew I was prepared to attach more perceived worth to this one than a factory farmed cheap chicken. However having cooked it this evening, I was disappointed with it. It may have been a little cheaper than the organic, but it didn’t satisfy me as well, it was tough and tasteless.
If I am going to eat meat two or three times a week, it has to be the very best and I am willing to pay as much as it costs until producing organic meat is the norm. When it is more widely bought and valued, and all of it used sparingly and reverently, it will cost less. That’s the way a free market works. My dog will enjoy the rest of it though!
When I found out how I could get my skincare cheaper, I knew I was helping someone who had too much stock to realize the actual value that they bought it for. However my initial response was oh goody, it’s a good deal for me. I actually realized that the person I bought it from was pleased to have at least been able to liquidate their stock at its bought in value. They may not have made much profit, but it wasn’t a loss. They can buy other items now that they can perhaps sell at a better margin. That’s a free market at work again.
What has happened is that we as consumers are demanding our purchases meet and exceed our requirements, but we are negotiating what value we want to give our choices.
It’s strange how we don’t question things like telephone charges, if we are addicted to using it. We quite happily part with £30 a month for Sky TV, and then moan that there still isn’t anything to watch. I could quite easily live without sky or my mobile ‘phone, it would save our household £60 a month, or £720 a year. My Husband couldn’t though!
If I was short of cash, and needed to pay for extra heating over the winter these would be my first two expenses I could live without. However I would find it difficult to stop smoking. I really enjoy my roll ups. I do buy them duty free, and I can tell you if it cost me more than £5 a week to smoke, I would give it up, purely on principle! I am prepared to spend £240 a year to smoke, but not over £250! I am certainly not prepared to pay £10 a week tax to the government for my habit! I stopped for a fifteen year period before, so I know I can stop again, I just don’t want to right now.
You are probably wondering why I smoke, unless you have resisted the social pressure that requires you not to smoke. Tobacco contains a complex set of poisons that reduce oxygen to a particular area of my brain. This causes it to enlarge and create a particular type of sensory perception to be enhanced. This area is now referred to as the ‘God Spot’. Incidentally nicotine satisfies particular receptors in my brain that are ‘addictive’. This is a genetic design, and if I am not satisfying them with some kind of substance that is ‘bad’ for me, I suffer from deprivation anxiety!
My choice is to smoke, rather than eat an excess of chocolate, and cheese or (overly) consume intoxicating amounts of alcohol. While smoking is legal I shall continue to do it. I take olive leaf complex which is the most varied and highly concentrated form of antioxidants, and has many antibacterial and antiviral properties. I am also addicted to cod liver oil, and rose hip syrup. I also grow physallis which I adore, and contains very concentrated vitamin C.
What has changed about our spending habits?
We have become far less ‘brand’ orientated, and more ‘value’ orientated. We are buying more good quality supermarket ‘own brands’. We aren’t so bothered with glossy swanky showy stuff. We want utility, stuff that works well, does its job and gives us good value in service. We are more switching to making choices based on reasoned motives than emotional motives.
That’s why there is a shift in advertising and packaging. The marketing people certainly know their stuff. We are looking for simpler packaging made from recyclable materials, preferably no silly packaging at all. We are moving away from a hunger for ‘newness’ in our purchases to tried and tested. Things we know do the job, so we don’t waste money trying new stuff and then finding it doesn’t really work that well.
We are looking for produce that hasn’t been artificially sweetened, preserved, or grown. We are considering the distance it has traveled to point of purchase. We are relying on ‘word of mouth’ and ‘which report’ type referrals for reliable goods and services, and we all have a social opinion about what needs fixing in our society, and how to fix it.
I don’t normally explain my choices to anyone, nor feel that I need to justify myself in any way. What I choose is right for me, not for you or anyone else. However there is always an element of semi-conscious or completely conscious choice in everything we do, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. The important thing is to recognize we are making choices, and allow the reason we make our choices to become a more focused conscious exercise.
You might be saying to yourself, it’s all right for you but I’m not like that. I have got so many problems I don’t know where to start. I feel so bad anyway, and have so little time or energy; don’t ask me to sort out anything else.
Why can’t we seem to ‘get a grip’ on what we want?
Remember I mentioned that our friends give us so much stuff. It’s because they don’t know what to do with it! We all get to the point where we need to do a ‘clear out’ around the house. We might decide to get a newer version of something. Garden furniture, household furniture clothes, the amount of ‘stuff; that we have is unprecedented! We get bored with our ‘stuff’ before it wears out. The problem is we don’t know what to do with it all and some of us have a great deal of difficulty letting go of our ‘stuff’.
It has emotional value because we have lived with it a long time. However second hand stuff, has comparatively little worth. An ‘antique’ is a second hand item that has suddenly acquired more intrinsic value. Our friends give us things because we value what they give us, and we usually find a good use for it, or know someone that will appreciate it.
Our friends also know that I enjoy recycling, and David loves hording! We have plenty of shed space, but our Jersey home is very small. What has evolved for us is a process of cluttering and de-cluttering. Stuff we know we will want to use again, but has no current relevance to the living space goes in the shed for storage. My parents were consummate hoarders and recyclers.
For instance we have a huge collection of Art. We can’t put all of it on display, so occasionally we change some of our pictures. We don’t have enough cupboard space, so I change my wardrobe for the season. I keep what I intend to wear for the next year, throw out what’s past it, and pack away.
It’s nice to get out clothes I haven’t seen for 6 months it’s even better when I get something out and feel ‘I love wearing that and I missed it’. My 22 year old sheepskin coat being my very favorite, a grey fur-necked merino cardigan that’s now five years old also gives me that ‘mmm… ‘feeling when I get it out.
Some things I buy, I never really wear, and these find their way to the charity shop fairly quickly. I also only shop twice a year, I give myself a budget for that season and only buy in the sales at least a 50% discount. Sometimes I don’t get out all the season’s clothes, only the ones I super-like. The interesting thing is I may find the following year the choices I make are different. I used to design and make my own clothes but now I have other hobbies. (As of retiring last year, I have started to make clothes again).
What is great about this process is I don’t get bored with seeing the same clothes in my wardrobe, so I don’t want to buy so many new ones. We are used to re-styling how we wear things. Programs like Goc’s fashion fix are good for inspiration. Also if I do have a nightmare ‘I haven’t got anything to wear moment’ I raid my ‘reserve store’. Saves a lot of money, and I hate traipsing round shops not knowing what I want to buy.
Another thing I discovered that it is very difficult to find furniture that ‘fits’ our living space. When I redecorated the house eighteen months ago, I realized I didn’t want different furniture; I just wanted it to be a different color, so I painted it. I loved doing it.
One of my ex clients writes for our Jersey Homes and Gardens magazine, and I was telling her what I was up to. She said she wanted to come and see for herself, and did a two page article on my home decorating exploits! ‘How to do it on a budget’ It wasn’t that I needed to save money, I just wanted to get it how I wanted it. My home is very personal.
However I did most of it myself and got myself physically and emotionally exhausted! I had a complete breakdown. That was a lesson in pacing my-self now my body has got to the point of not keeping up with my mind! The un-displaced spinal fracture I have at the moment is a reminder of that lesson! Note to self; remember you might not look fifty two, but racing around like a twenty year old is unrealistic!
The interesting thing is that I have been consciously doing this for the last ten years. I am quite practiced at it. I had to make some very difficult choices when my Husband became very ill. I am good at dealing with crisis because I have had many of them! We all react differently in a crisis, how you naturally react is not wrong.
However, how we tackle the aftermath of any crisis is a learned process. We also undergo a natural period of grief, which hasn’t been explained to us very well. During our grief process we behave differently as the process unfolds, so it’s important to know where we are in the cycle of grief, and what to expect.
This cycle of grief affects us after every emotional, mental and physical trauma. We need to be gentle with ourselves, and know that we have to wait for the process to work itself through. We can’t skip bits either, or we end up having stress and anxiety to deal with later.
It doesn’t mean that we can’t function as well during the cycle of grief, just that it’s essential to know we are grieving. If not we feel constantly confused and disempowered, perhaps even become clinically depressed or find ourselves quite physically ill for seemingly no reason.
Each trauma has its cycle of grief. It’s important to know what you are grieving about and where each stage of the cycle of grief you have reached, otherwise we are not fully entering into the healing process. The problem is that because few of us spend ‘time with ourselves’ any longer, we have no room in our lives to learn to reflect. You and I are reflecting right now.
Without time to reflect, when we do have a little time, like a holiday, all this grief hits us just like the swing in the back of the head.
In a way, dealing with our emotional and mental baggage is just the same as coming up with a plan for dealing with a small living space. Another analogy is the way we file our information on the computer. Some of us have a method of creating files and sub-files to keep track of all the ‘intellectual stuff’ we collect.
Other people just lump everything together and then can’t find things when they haven’t used them for a while. It just depends on whether you have a soft system in place that you automatically use. I do both! Like I said, I like messy!
I find I have a tolerance level for clutter and disorder. That’s when I usually ‘lose it’ and have a tantrum. Then I get it all sorted out. I am still doing exactly the same thing I was taught as a child! I still throw my clothes on the floor when I take them off, and leave my ‘homework’ unfinished, and hand it in late! I just do it with different things. Instead of my mother throwing a tantrum and making me clear it up, I throw my own tantrum!
I can change how I do my ‘tidying’ and keep everything neat and tidy, up to date and spick and span, but there is a streak of Tracy Emmin in me. I love a messy room!
There is something very satisfying about making a mess, then leaving it for a few days. Then there is something very satisfying about clearing it all up again, My husband notices the house is clean and tidy, (for about ten minutes), because he likes making a mess as well, so does the Dog. She has the cutest habit when I have everything spotless and immaculately tidy, of making a nest in the faux fur throws I have over the leather chairs. If I have put all her toys away they have to come out again, just like a small child would tip their toys out.
It’s only when I have cleaned the house that she gets her lion out. A large soft toy that is the same size as her. She gives it a good shaking and sorting out. I am surprised it has lasted so long. She was given it as a six month old pup and it had a huge golden mane which she would pull out. I was frightened she would choke on the fur so I used an old pair of salon clippers and ‘balded’ it’s mane off. Now it looks like a dog!
When we lost our first dog suddenly about four or five years ago, (My Father died three days before this, and I was moving and re-opening my salon as well the same day). I realized about three weeks later that we had to get a new dog right away.
My husband wanted a long period of mourning for her, but I realized he would become very ill if he continued without another companion. We went to a private animal shelter in Guernsey as there were no dogs that needed re-homing in Jersey at that time.
A small black mange ridden Patterdale Terrier chose My Husband. His heart melted for her completely. We brought her home, and I spent two years bathing and treating her skin condition. I came to the conclusion that she had developed a habit of tearing her fur out that thankfully transferred itself to the lion.
We finally managed to overcome her mange when a specialist told us to clipper all her fur off, so that her skin could be treated more effectively. As far as Prince Charming is concerned, Tyke can do no wrong, Her nipping and biting was just playfulness, and he secretly took delight in her nipping people’s heels and bullying.
We were both delighted when we found she was a brilliant hunter, and have had many warm rabbits and pheasants, rats and moles given to us as presents. The former two find their way to the casserole, as she only wants the intestines and doesn’t mark any of the meat.
I even served a game casserole to some friends who said they too would like to try a ‘dog kill’ meal. It had some pigeon in it as well which had been given by a friend who goes shooting. Our friends told colleagues the next day. There were very mixed reactions, from fascinated intrigue to disgust!
I had the sneakiest suspicion it was clippering Tyke that somehow relieved her fur pulling habit rather than the products we used. Obviously the treatment stopped the awful irritation, but having no fur to get hold of for a while broke the habit!
She now has a remarkable coat. She looks like a black version of Snowy from Tin-Tin, with a distinct flavor of Gnasher from Beano; she certainly has Gnasher’s personality!
If you were a ‘Star Trek fan you will know what a ‘Klingon Targ’ is. Certainly you will know what a domesticated velociraptor might be like to live with. ‘Tyke’ was a little bigger than a Jack Russell, and very soon after we got her we found that Patterdales are considered to be feral dogs and un-trainable.
One description is that they are like four Jack Russells rolled into one dog. She has a mouth full of highly specialized equipment, including a two inch canine overlap, front incisors that are designed to strip flesh quicker than a piranha, and a set of bone crushing molars that can crush marrow bone in a few minutes. Her instinct is never to let go. If you liked ‘Marley and Me’ the story of ‘Tyke’, makes Marley’s story a walk in the park. I became an avid fan of Cesar Milan’s program ‘The Dog Whisperer’.
Our first dog Jasmin was one of my ‘soul mates’ and Tyke is one of my husband’s. Jasmin and I ‘talked’ from the moment I got her. Interestingly ‘Tyke’ is now beginning to ‘talk’ to me. She is a Dog, and actually she deserves to tell her own story.
What we want, and what is right for us can be very different. I had a small vicious dog that was very sick to cope with. I would have chosen a five year old King Charles Spaniel from the shelter, but we had agreed that we would let the Dog choose us. The process of rehabilitating Tyke helped me to overcome my own grief. I had to learn to love her, and tame her. This process helped to heal my own grief. Instead of turning in on myself, I had a sick dog to go through my process of healing with, and My husband had a special soul mate to pounce on him and demand to be played with.
I try not to ‘humanize’ the dog, but even one of My Husband’s friends said two days ago ‘you have a lovely child there’!
What is what you are reading now worth to you?
So far I have given you an interaila picture of my ‘credentials’. You might be reading to this point because you are entertained, intrigued, or someone told you this really helped them to understand some aspects of society or their own thinking. I am simply going to post this on the internet. If you need to find it you will.
If it helps you send it to someone you love.
You could give an amount of money, or some time to a worthy charity. You choose!
I did think of writing some e-books, but I feel dead lazy right now about them!
Like I said, I don’t desire more money or property. There is a huge downturn in the amount we are all giving to charities right now. I would like to help you and I, do some ‘social giving’ and make a difference. What is important to remember is that throwing money at something isn’t the answer. Getting involved with it, is what makes a social difference, and gives us personal satisfaction. We all function better with a ‘cause’.
What a human being needs.
As I mentioned before, what we need and what we desire are usually at odds with each other. I have had a lifelong interest in ‘spiritual’, ‘mental’, and ‘emotional’ subjects. I am only just getting into my ‘personal physical welfare’! I do have a good understanding of human biology, and specifically illnesses that become apparent through the skin, hair and nail department.
We need a good diet in all of these areas. Without a good ‘spiritual diet’ we lack meaning to our lives. Without a good ‘mental diet’, we are engulfed by the amount of knowledge we are bombarded by. Without a good ‘emotional diet’ we are overwhelmed and disempowered by a sense of inadequacy. Without a good ‘lifestyle diet’ we suffer physical congestion, the same as all the other ‘needs’ above.
By spiritual diet, I mean a structured conscious form of worship, meditation, and inner prayer life that feeds our soul. There are many disciplines to choose from, and most at some point lead towards the revelation of a singular, personal, interactive experience of a creator and sustainer of all that is, was, and will be. Choose wisely. If you can’t say you are; self disciplined, obedient, inspired, creative, intuitive, prophetic, and loving, you need to do some work on your spiritual life. 5/10 on all counts would be good, any more you might be the Dali-Lama and may already live in a religious institution.
By Mental diet, I mean the learned capacities. Ability to read and write, if it is relevant to your way of life, try a little practice every day, like keeping a diary. Basic mathematics is very useful keep your personal accounts up to date. For ongoing personal development, choose a new subject of interest on a regular basis, and find out as much as you can about it. Our brains need as much ‘workout’ as our bodies, otherwise they atrophy! Inherent IQ is not relevant here.
If you have none of the following interests you are not exercising your rights as a member of your society. Political awareness, social history, current affairs, (I don’t mean the latest edition of ‘Hello’ magazine) some form of artistic appreciation, current education practice, membership of a local community project, club or society. Do some kind of social voluntary work. 6/10 on four of these and we wouldn’t have many problems within society. If you are currently out of work do some kind of voluntary work, looks great on your CV, and gets you motivated.
A good emotional diet means we have our love muscles well toned! (You can interpret that how you like!). If you can’t say you are generous, kind, forgiving, mild tempered, patient, loyal and loving, you have few emotional hang-ups. 7/10 on any of those would be a good target! 10/10 all the time and you would have to be Jesus himself! (And there is, was, and will be only one of Him).
Personal care of our own physical wellbeing is pretty obvious, but we don’t have enough routine rest and relaxation in the western world. Aim for 8/10 on all counts and you have a well balanced life; Good and moderate eating plan, a lunch break where you sit down and eat your home made lunch, preferably with friends and not at work. (Churches often offer a free place to sit and eat your lunch, and often offer a cheap cup of tea or coffee to welcome you, If daily worship is your thing, many will offer a ‘drop-in, café style worship to get your daily slice of spiritual diet). A brisk walk or exercise if you are able of at least twenty minutes, face to face interaction of at least one hour a day with family members friends or people you live with ideally sitting over an evening meal, a good nights sleep of at least eight hours, some kind of physical ‘treat’. If you manage to do this every day you would be pretty healthy. Being ‘fit’ is not the same.
If you got all of these things going every day you would have a nicely balanced life. You could afford a few lapses, and stress wouldn’t be an issue. The truth is you have the time, just not the inclination to do these things. It’s your choice if you work in a job that demands unrealistic work loads. It’s your choice if you are doing a job you hate for the money. It’s a choice if we have unresolved personal issues.
It’s a choice if we consciously decide to change our lives or stay on the same treadmill.
It’s a fact that our optimal working period is over six days with one complete day of rest and recreation – together. That’s why having Sundays or Saturdays off, depending on your faith is a great idea. It’s a Family and Friends day. It restores our soul to offer an hour of that day to corporate worship. If you are serious about doing ‘religion’ you go to extra curricular study, by either reading books or join a spiritual social group.
You know all this, but doing it is another matter! It means being aware of how you apportion your awareness every day. Time is not relevant, conscious attention is what we are looking for here!
Everything we are is about choice. We may not be able to change our situation, or we may not want to. However we can change our attitudes and what we focus on in that situation.
What kind of life do I lead, I hear you ask!
For instance yesterday was a rainy day, and an ‘Ugly Frog’ day. I had become engrossed in writing thus far over the last few days, and my Husband wanted my undivided company. I did not switch off my laptop when he asked me to at about 10am, even though he did not want to switch off the TV. I reasoned that as we weren’t going to ‘talk’ there wasn’t much point.
Yes, I am married to ‘Prince Charming’; his alter ego is ‘The Ugly Frog’. I choose to enjoy ‘Prince Charming’s’ fine qualities. His alter Ego, ‘Ugly Frog’ is endearing!
‘Prince Charming’ thinks I am beautiful, gifted, and adores me. He enjoys respect and admiration for his fine qualities. It gives him a sense of significance and security to be loved. He is a wonderful chef, and makes the most delicious meals. He does all the shopping. He makes every effort to please me, and buys me flowers. He is a great hunter gatherer. He is noble, kind, generous, intelligent, romantic, and has a good education. He has many friends and is wonderful company. He is witty, happy, and content with simple pleasures. He is not materialistic, nor impressed with outer finery. He considers friends to be treasured. He rarely gets angry, and is very forgiving. ‘Prince Charming’ is very engaging in explaining his knowledge and point of view, and enters into short but lively bursts of conversation. He is also (somewhat) magnanimous in defeat. He is delightful to live with.
‘Ugly Frog’ often invades the bathroom and 'crapauds' when I am relaxing in the bath. (Although he doesn’t do this in France as we have two bathrooms) He gets impatient with himself and other drivers, and never cleans his car. His motto is ‘brinksmanship’. He is very competitive and likes to win board and card games, and He watches a lot of Television and doesn’t like much conversation on subjects that interest me. He walks off when I am talking to him and ‘tunes out’ even when I have his attention momentarily. He expects me to mind read his every thought and wish. He becomes irritable when he is tired or hungry, or feels he is not getting my attention.
Through being married to ‘Ugly Frog’ I have had to learn to ‘mind read’, be patient, and anticipate his next move so I can get out of the way. I have to be prepared to drop what I am doing at a moment’s notice, and stroke his ego. The strange thing is, the better I have become at these talents, the less I see him in our relationship. However to be honest I don’t want to banish ‘Ugly Frog’ completely because I would be bored stiff.
I used to get very angry with ‘Ugly Frog’, but over time I have learned that he is very kissable. It’s strange how a simple kiss or hug turns ‘Ugly Frog’ back into ‘Prince Charming’.
‘Prince Charming’ and I were married twenty five years ago. I didn’t realize at that time he had an ‘alter ego’. This was probably because ‘Ugly Frog’ only comes out when he feels very secure, and knows he is loved too. ‘Ugly Frog’ also feels significant, self assured and secure because he knows he is loved.
Before I had another ‘Ugly Frog’ day today, I resolved to turn off my laptop the moment he awoke and came down for his morning coffee. I resolved that I would do this so he could see that I had realized it had offended him yesterday. While he was waiting for his coffee to brew I went and hugged and kissed him. He immediately reverted to his normal ‘Charming Prince’ personality. He soon switched off the TV, and started looking at local interest guides. Within thirty minutes we had left the house to go on a ‘mystery drive’.
We went for a walk on a lovely new footpath where my ‘Charming Prince’ courteously held my arm carefully to support my limping. It was a glorious place under an avenue of autumn copper leaves, and a carpet of acorns and spiky chestnut wrappings. We found three huge and perfect parasol mushrooms to make our dinner with this evening. We walked as far as a patch of brilliant autumn morning sunlight, and turned back the moment I felt it was far enough for me to make the return journey comfortably.
We then drove on another twenty minutes to a beautiful new place, a secret harbor on the ‘Rance Estuary’. The sky and water were a gorgeous cerulean blue, and as we got out of the car some people from Guernsey pulled up along side our car. You can tell a Jersey car because it has a ‘J’ before its number. A Guernsey car has just a short number.
‘Charming Prince’ greeted the people getting out of the car. ‘Hello Guernsey People’! We had a lovely short conversation together, and then ‘Charming Prince’ took Tyke for a wander along the estuary while the Guernsey people and I had a lovely long chat. The Guernsey lady suffered from exactly the same type of back problem as me. She owned a riding stable in Guernsey and was kicked in the lower spine about fifteen years ago and has suffered ever since. I explained my accident happened on my fifth riding lesson, after deciding I needed to take up some more exercise! We had so much in common, it was delightful. Then my ‘Charming Prince’ returned, and we parted company.
‘Charming Prince’ told me all about some wicker fish traps he found. I told him it was a very ancient way of catching fish. I didn’t tell him any more about ancient fish traps, or it would bore him, and he might have a few ‘Ugly Frog’ minutes.
Then my ‘Charming Prince’ took me for another anciently scenic drive through hidden old villages to a secret place further down the Rance River, where he took me for a delightful lunch. He also went to the car to get me my fleece, and was sympathetic when I had to stand and walk about between courses. (‘Ugly Frog’ would have been annoyed and embarrassed). ‘Charming Prince’ suggested we leave before coffee, (which he enjoys very much) as he could see I was very tired. He drove home carefully, resisting ‘Ugly Frog's attempts to push him out of the driving seat. We got home, and ‘Charming Prince, offered to make me a cup of tea. He was delighted that I joined him for an afternoon nap.
Now that I am refreshed after an hour of sleep, I can enjoy an hour playing with my laptop until my ‘Charming Prince’ wakes up and I switch off my laptop. We have had two beautiful days together. Yesterday we were being children, and today we were being adults.
Neither, ‘Charming Prince’ or ‘Ugly Frog’ show interest in what I am writing. They find my thoughts very strange and challenging, and rather boring. However it’s very useful if ‘Charming Prince reads things I have written, because he doesn’t have dyslexic spelling, and is very good at composition, so he can correct things that need correcting.
For instance I read him the story yesterday morning of ‘The King Who Wore No Clothes’. I realized it was an unsatisfactory ending and changed the story to include the stepmother and two ugly sisters. Called the ‘Ugly Daughter’ ‘Snow White’ and introduced ‘Prince Charming’ as ‘Scammitt and Raquett’. When I read it to him yesterday evening he said it was a much better story. He didn’t get the anagram when I showed him though, I had to tell him that the bold letters spelt ‘rescue’!
This might be the ending?
If you want to read any of my other stuff you are very welcome. If you come across it being sold or in printed form, it’s a rip off and you are being involved in copyright fraud, and your money won’t be heading for a good cause. I don’t want my thoughts written down on paper, it’s a waste of good trees.
I don’t mind if you use paper to print off any stories, but please try to use both sides of the paper when you print, or use paper that’s already printed on one side, but no longer relevant, and doesn’t contain any personally sensitive data.
Thanks for being interested in what I have to say. Please don’t disturb my quiet and peaceful life, I couldn’t cope with it. I would end up back in the asylum and ‘Prince Charming’ and his alter ego ‘Ugly Frog’ and dog ‘Tyke’ pine very badly when I am away.
This material and anything you find on this website that has been written by me is copyright! Please feel free to translate it though and spread it around!
I decided to include this made up story of how time was ended, and true liberty was restored to the people of the world if they could understand what time and liberty were.
I am not putting it in the 'childrens' stories section, or the religeous bit, as it is not orthodox!
‘The story of how the world was captivated’ ... This is just a story!
At the dawn of humankind there was just one man and one woman, the story of how they came to exist is told in many culture’s religious writings.
They were innocent and naive, and had no concepts.
One day an Alien appeared their world, and promised them a special kind of life.
He promised them that if they disobeyed their creator, they would be free of his tyrannical power,
that kept them in ignorance, and unaware of the way their world was or could be.
He explained that if they became something called ‘sentient’ they would eventually become just like their creator, as they would learn to have understanding and power over their world, and be like people from other worlds who visited each other.
The Alien asked the woman if there was anything that their creator had told them not to do. She replied; ‘My creator told me not to eat from this tree’, He explained to her ‘If you eat from this tree called ‘The Knowledge of Good and Evil’, you will become like ‘The Creator’ and know all there is to know. If you eat this fruit you will not surely die’. The woman didn’t actually know what ‘die’ meant, but loved her Creator so much, that she had never eaten from the tree because she didn’t want to disappoint him.
The Alien smiled at her and flicked out his forked tongue in pleasure, and sent a ripple down his long colorful body. This mesmerized the woman. The Alien continued to speak, but the woman found she felt dreamy and far away from him.
In her dreamy state she heard the Alien say ‘You and your kind will go on many journeys over millennia in order to learn to speak and visit with the other Aliens who visit this planet’ he continued, after about sixty millennia you will have all the knowledge you need to even visit Aliens on other planets’.
‘I have hypnotized you, and this effect will last through every generation of your offspring from now on’ He continued in his soft lisping lilting tone, ‘You will not ‘surely’ die as your creator has told you, but your knowledge and life story will become part of the subconscious memory of all who come after you, you will live on in their memory’.
The woman didn’t know what ‘millennia’ and ‘hypnotized’ and ‘memory’ were, but she could not wake herself up to tell the Alien she wasn’t interested. She felt captured in her dream, and very disturbed that the Alien had this effect on her.
‘When you wake up from your little sleep’ the Alien told her, ‘you won’t remember any of the things you have heard me say. You will believe I, and all the other animals that live on this planet are dumb and senseless creatures’. The woman was becoming very frightened this meant she would no longer be able to talk to the birds or squirrels who were her favorite friends.
The Alien continued to explain ‘You will learn knowledge of good and evil through ‘trial and error’ for this is the only way your kind will become truly sentient. You will believe that knowledge is to be desired more than intuition and instinct, and find ways to record you knowledge so that your offspring may learn the special knowledge you learn in your life story’.
The Alien then thought transferred all that would come to pass during the next sixty millennia. When this process was complete he began to speak to the woman again.
‘When you awake, you and your kind will continue to live out this story I have thought transferred to you, until you reach a state of full sentience’ He continued in his dreamy voice, ‘You will now sleep a little longer, until the tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil casts a shadow on your face. You will awake in intuitive and instinctive darkness, and forget that we ever spoke, or that I have thought transferred a very long story into your mind’.
The Alien paused to make sure the woman was still fully hypnotized, and when he was satisfied that he had complete control over her, he continued to finish the process he had begun. ‘When you awake from this little sleep as the tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil casts a shadow on your face, you will awake with complete desire for its fruit, you will see that it is pleasing to your eyes, and good for gaining wisdom, then you will take this fruit to the man, and tell him; ‘"This fruit is delicious, it has given me knowledge which is very desirable", you will continue to convince him until he is so weary that he forgets what the creator told you both’.
The Alien continued ‘When he has eaten the fruit, you will let him fall into a little sleep, and then I will come and thought transfer to the man all that will come to pass in the next sixty millennia. Then all your offspring will have this story imprinted on their subconscious memory when they are born. They will also have a desire to disobey the creator, and their mother and father, and abhor authority of any kind’.
The Alien then placed the final thoughts into the woman’s mind. ‘You will be cast out of this Garden of Eden’ called ‘Now’, by the Creator and if you remember its existence it will be a dream like moment that passes very quickly. The state of mind you will understand and live in; is ‘From Now On’, or ‘Time passed’’.
‘To discover the required amount of knowledge to make you and your kind completely sentient, you will have these four words imprinted in your memory, you will not forget these words when you wake up. The words are ‘what, when, where, and how’. These words will be the key to learning knowledge, and they will enable you to conceptualize your world and all that you discover, so that you can communicate ideas from generation to generation’. At this the Alien checked that the woman was still fully hypnotized and then hobbled away on his short stubby legs.
The woman woke up, and the rest they say is ‘history’.
This Alien came from a race called ‘Angels’ and was very, very wicked. He was thrown out of the home world of his species that was called ‘Heaven’. He was unbelievably wicked because he disobeyed the rules the Creator gave to this species he created.
The wicked Alien was punished by the creator, who reconfigured his physical form to have no legs to stand on. From that time on, the Alien was known as a 'serpent' and confined to the world where the man and woman lived, so that he could not disobey the Creator's rules on any other world. (Serpent is an anagram for Repents)
The Creator resolved to allow the disobedient Angel’s plan to run its full course, as to remove the ‘memory implantation’ in the Human Beings subconscious mind would cause them to be reabsorbed into his cosmic awareness. He would make sure his beloved Human beings, that he had made to reflect his own image had all the help to get through the nightmare dream the serpent had placed into their subconscious ‘Now’ mind.
The Creator sent messengers in each generation of ‘Human Beings’ that were highly attuned to hearing his help and advice. They learned quickly that by prayer and meditation they could discern his advice more easily. In one special generation he sent his own Son to speak to human beings.
The truth was that all species live in an eternal singularity called ‘Now’. It encapsulates all the concepts of time and space, knowledge and instinctive intuition.
This is why babies always awake to the process of becoming sentient with the word ‘Why’. Some babies give up asking ‘why’ very quickly, because the stories their parents and teachers tell them are not very satisfying and very contradictory.
The truth is no longer the ‘true’ once it has been spoken, because at that point it becomes a story, and history, of both the past and the future.
The only way the ‘Now’ can be experienced again, is in silence, when all thoughts and concepts are stilled, and in this state of ‘presence’ all desires are unnecessary.
Now how you choose to live and what you believe is a question of sentient choice.
A few Parting words for now.
If you would like to discover how to use your sentient choice carefully, there is a book of Proverbs in the Bible.
As I often say to my esteemed Husband, ‘Make up your mind, before someone else makes it up for you'!
Pax
