Chance - Carpe Diem

I met a male friend of a friend 2 weeks ago at the theatre. Nice man, widower, just out of a 2 year realationship. Encouraged by my friend I emailed him to see if he would be interested in a friendship. Although I would say I'm fairly assertive, I've never done anything like that before in my life. But I feel that if I don't make an effort & "Carpe Diem" my life will slip away.

A chance meeting may lead to someone to share doing things with, but one needs to be pro active. Grab life by the neck, not sit at home alone. So while he decides whether this would be right for him I have just signed on to a Saga singles website. I would never  have anticipated doing that!

However it just makes you realise that there are a huge number of single people out there, all ages, all shapes & sizes, all backgrounds - all looking for someone to share their lives. We humans are social animals, we are programmed to live in groups, not isolated. Our society has become quite disfunctional because of a range of factors which have led to more and more people living alone.

What is the point of being able to talk if there is little conversation? What is the point of having an out going & giving personality if there is no one to share doing things with. Regular, close, human contact, physical & emotional, is vital to most of us. So most of us are at our best in a shared relationship, whatever form that might take.

So I'm not looking for a handsome prince - just an ordinary, nice, single, man who I can be a friend to and be friends with. Actually, a single woman would do.

Slimming

Trousers too tight! Must focus. Target - eight weeks - lose 16lbs - 10% of current weight. A new healthier me. Clothes that fit. Less bulges. I have allowed myself to put on weight by eating between meals & eating too many sweet things & nibbles. It's comfort eating to fill the gap in my life & it won't do.

So - a brutally honest chart & will power. More exercise too - Swimming x 3, Yoga x 2, Walking x 1 - every week. I can do it. I have before, but wasn't this overweight then.

Cicero - On the Good Life.

Reading a detective novel I came across a reference to Cicero's duties & moral goodness in "On the Good Life".

• The ability to distinguish truth from falsity, and understand the relationship between one phenomenon and another & the causes and consequences of each one.
• The ability to restrain the passions.
• The ability to behave considerately and understandingly in our associations with other people."

If you are religious, which I'm not, you have Holy texts.  But everyone needs a "moral compass." By definition this cannot operate in a self absorbed & selfish person. When Mrs Thatcher said "there is no such thing as society" she did great harm.

Individuals have to be capable of putting others first for good to be done. They also have to be able to empathise with anothers situation and be prepared to make an effort  in order to improve it. Sometimes we have to put our own desires at the bottom of the list in order to benefit someone or society in general.

Human beings are capable of amazing selfless actions. Many are truly caring & endure great hardship and pain for the benefit for others. Honesty & truth are difficult taskmasters, temptation is all around us. But we should at least be honest with ourselves.

Above all we should try to think first & not go into "fight & flight mode" as soon as something thwarts us. We sometimes seem to let our emotions rule our lives. How many times have I lost my temper, been judgemental, said something cruel or unkind, even wanted to hit someone. It often seems that adults behave like spoilt children having a temper tantrum.

Truth, Emotion & Kindness - Could do better if I tried!

Rain & Water Wars.

After weeks of dryness throughout April & May we finally had rain last night. All climate records have been broken. There was stunning thunder and lightening. The Alchemilla looked lovely with it's fat raindrop globules this morning. My newly planted trees have struggled despite my watering efforts, and my lawn is full of deep cracks in the ground. The spring flowering has been spectacular. This following on from the third hard winter in a row. The man made cause might be disputed, but but not by me. I don't see how anyone with eyes to see can deny climate change.

We think of the UK as a "green & pleasant land"- I wonder for how long. We assume water is an ever flowing constant, always there. Without a plentiful water supply we are simply unsustainable. Growing food, rearing animals, industrial needs, not to mention the simple day to day routines of washing - all water dependent. The trouble is, as so many things, we take it for granted.

Informed people are already talking about "Water Wars". Nations abstract huge amounts of water seriously impacting on other nations further down river. Massive dams are built, again impacting on other countries. I have seen the "Great Man Made River" in Libya and was filled with horror at the wasteful selfishness of the whole project.  Farmers, villages & individuals do the same.

We seem to think that water is a right rather than a valuable natural resource. Tell that to millions of people in the third world who have no access to clean water. As you are watering your flowers think of people walking miles to get a container full of water or drinking filthy, contaminated water from a river or stream.

I'm not naive enough to think that this can be solved easily, but it could be solved now. We have the technology & the resources. It's not rocket science. It just takes the will of enough people not to accept the unacceptable. It also takes the will to spend the money on something really worthwhile.

Change - Osama bin Laden

One of the basic tenets of Buddhist philosophy is accepting that change happens. Osama Bin Laden the leader of the terrorist group Al Quaeda was killed by the Americans yesterday. This will undoubtedly result in change in the Arab world & the world generally. Whether that change will be for good or ill we have to wait & see. In the meantime the press & media are dining out on pointless speculation.

The whole nature of change is that it happens unexpectedly & we cannot control it, but we do have to accept it and manage it as effectively as we are able. We are living through times where the rate of change in our lives seems to be growing exponentially. Very little can be expected to be immutable. This can be quite stressful, especially to those of a less robust disposition or control freaks.

At a simple individual level my life now bears very little resemblance to my life when I was a child, a teenager or a young adult. The tendency can be to resist change because the familiar is comfortable & known. But I have learned to embrace change. Resisting is futile anyway. It seem to me that the thing is not to fear change. We all have to find a way to deal with it anyway, at any level. So we might as well go forward into the unknown with a positive attitude. Change is often ultimately good.

I do believe that one's attitude actually colours the reality of one's experience. I would like my life to be as positive as possible. So I do actively try not to be negative. (It doesn't always work though. I am only human!)

Talking - A Poem

Talking to people is strange,
I say what I think.
The words pass in straight lines
From mouth to ear.
And yet are distorted,
Like a childrens whispering game.


Is the air a catalyst,
An agent for change,
That you don't understand what I'm saying?


We descend to trivialities
To cover our confusion,
Our inability to comprehend,
The vast depths of emotions felt.


The need to communicate is strong
And yet......
We avoid understanding,
Afraid of what we might reveal,
Afraid of the pain
Of sharing emotions.


And so we pass the time of day
In mundane conversation.
Because anything else
Is too fraught with dangers,
Too likely to end in disaster.


Preserve the veneer
At all costs.
Don't really listen.
Because we don't want to hear
What is really being said.



Val Carlill - written in the 1970s

Communication & the Royal Wedding.

Being alone I now realise how important this is to human beings. We are social animals & have a deep need to interact with others. If we lose that ability, for whatever reason, we are diminished.

There are layers of communication, from superficial & shallow pleasantries to deep and meaningful sharing of our innermost thoughts. The former is fairly common, the latter requires real trust in another person, and is much rarer.

If you have that wonderful reciprocal sharing of yourself with another person, you may not realise it's value until it is lost. Replacing it then becomes an unfulfilled need unless you are very lucky.

I have become adapt at talking to anyone on any subject, but in truth what I do is ask questions & listen. It seems to me that most people want to tell you stuff - in detail. Once you become aware you realise that it is a very one sided conversation. They don't ask about you & your life, or if they do they really don't want to hear. They expect a one line answer. Many actually don't let you finish a sentence before moving on to another subject.

I'm sure this isn't meant to be hurtful or dismissive. I just think that we have become a very self absorbed & selfish society.

Prince William & Kate Middleton got married yesterday. It was a wonderful day & it seems they have this real bond of communication. I hope they manage to keep it. It will be hard in the face of the very public & demanding life they lead. Hopefully they have family & friends whom they can trust when problems arise, and they will. They are human beings, if very privileged ones. They will also have advisors on every possible subject because they are the centre of a PR vortex. Their wedding was literally seen around the world, as it happened, because of our modern, sophisticated, communication network.

I hope that they continue to listen to their inner voices and eachother through the years to come.