Senses working overtime #451

1 Feeling this (Christmas) week

2 Reading: Ben Sanders - The Devils You Know

Holidays are not complete without a Ben Sandars novel.

3 Reading: Billy Connolly - Rambling Man

4 Listening: Crosby Stills & Nash - Guinnevere (live in Santa Cruz 1989)

5 Watched: Leave The World Behind

We enjoyed this one - unusual, thought provoking with excellent acting and a well disguised ending.

Overtime: Predictions

Wilbur Wright, who worked with his brother to create the first successful airplane, on predicting the future:

"I confess that, in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for 50 years. Two years later, we were making flights. This demonstration of my inability as a prophet gave me such a shock that I have ever since refrained from all prediction."

Source: Speech at Aero-Club de France (1908)​​

Senses working overtime #450

1 Feeling this week

Photo by Jorge Vasconez on Unsplash

2 Listening: David Crosby - Too Young To Die (from Thousand Roads)

3 Reading: Writer C. Raymond Beran on friendship

"What is a friend? I will tell you.

It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with him. He seems to ask of you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. He does not want you to be better, or worse. When you are with him, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, so long as it is genuinely you. He understands those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you.

With him you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities and, in opening them up to him, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of his loyalty. He understands. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse him, neglect him, tolerate him. Best of all, you can keep still with him. It makes no matter. He likes you. He is like fire that purges to the bone. He understands. He understands. You can weep with him, sin with him, laugh with him, pray with him. Through it all—and underneath—he sees, knows and loves you.

A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself."

4 Reading: This is the way

Some practical life lessons from Taoism

5 Reading: Times 1000 - Seth Godin

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Overtime: Watching: Christmas movies

Senses working overtime #449

1 Activity this week (painting window sills)

Photo by Joris Berthelot on Unsplash

2 Reading: The Boys - Ron and Clint Howard

3 Reading: The Lone Star Ranger - Zane Grey

4 Listening: Fighter Command from Gathering Speed - Big Big Train

5 Writing: Goo Goo G'Joob posts

Having re-organised my collection into straight alphabetical order I've been feverishly writing mini reviews for my music blog. Each time I have a rule that I need to listen to the record before I write about it.

 

Overtime: Maya Angelou on finding your family:

"Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what."

Senses working overtime #448

1 The feeling at the end of this week

Photo by Erriko Boccia on Unsplash

2 Watching: Welcome To Wrexham

3 Reading: edwin + matilda - Laurence Fearnley

4 Listening: Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde

5 Reading: Time's person of the year - Taylor Swift

Overtime: 

All I have learned, I learned from books (Abraham Lincoln)

It's holiday time which for me means more reading time - smiley face.

Senses working overtime #447

1 Feeling this week

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

2 Watching: Mandalorian Season 3

3 Listening: Phil Collins Hand In Hand

4 Reading: Charle's Good Tonight - Paul Sexton

5 The best thing I read this week:

Ex-Microsoft general manager and writer, Peter Atkins on how to live life.

“Laugh. We’re all going to be dead anyway some day. So while you should try your hardest to make the most of your life, when something funny happens, when you make a mistake, or even (and perhaps especially) when bad things happen, it’s easier if you can laugh about yourself and the world.”

Source: Life Is Short And So Is This Book: Brief Thoughts On Making The Most Of Your Life

Overtime: 

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Confucius

Senses working overtime #446

1 Feeling this week

Photo by Fred Moon on Unsplash

2 Reading: James Clear

"If you're stuck on a problem, try solving it at a different level.

If you ask, "What can we do to create a more unified country?" then you end up with vague answers that are difficult to implement. The problem is mostly unmanageable at that level.

But if you ask, "What can I do to create a more unified neighborhood?" then you can likely think of many small things you can do to connect your friends and neighbors.

Zoom in or zoom out. Problems that seem impossible at one level are often quite accessible from a different one."

3 Poetry corner

Leviathan There's a creature that usually lives in the sea. We brought it to land, fed it half of our own food. measured its wingspan, weighed its brain, stole its nightmares, sent it back to sea. This is why we can drown, why our dreams never match our lives. Victoria Chang (2022)

4 Viewing: Looking at Trees

5 Watching: The office on wheels!

Overtime: Seth Godin

In a competition between someone who knows the most and someone who is willing to learn the most, the edge usually goes to the curious and empathic professional, not the one who is simply protecting what’s already known.

Senses working overtime #445

1 The feeling this week

Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

2 Reading - The Stakes - Ben Sanders

3 Poetry corner

Prose poem Another day in the ruinous world, eating peanut butter off a knife. Tom Snarsky (2023)

4 Reading: Lost In Translation at 20

5 Listening: Daylist - Friday evenings on Spotify

Just type 'daylist' into your search and be amazed... Here's my chill alternative Friday evening playlist. Thanks to James for the nod to this and that LIT Guardian article above. Chur bro.

Overtime: 

Patience

It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.

Seth Godin

Senses working overtime #444

1 The feeling at the end of the week

Photo by Sage Friedman on Unsplash

2 Listening: A Day In The Life - Brian Auger and The Trinity

3 Watching: Bodies (on Netflix)

4 Reading: Serotonin - Michel Houellebecq

5 Reading: Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello calls you to find what grips your soul:

"You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love."

Source: The Way to Love

Overtime: 

"You have to live with your mistakes, but you don't have to compound them.

To follow up an error with a foolish reaction is to lose twice. Given the reality of where you are right now, what is the best next action?

A wise response may not erase a dumb mistake, but it can redeem it."

James Clear.

Senses working overtime #443

1 Start of the week

2 Listening: Courtney Barnett - End Of The Day

3 Watching: Quarterback (Netflix) 

Really enjoying this one (although Jacky isn't). A lot of leadership lessons to be drawn from this series.

4 Reading: The Beatles - Now and Then

5 End of the week

Overtime: 

Haiku 307

I feel autumn rain
Trying to explain something
I do not want to know.

Richard Wright (1960)

Senses working overtime #442

1 The feeling this week

Photo by Meg Boulden on Unsplash

2 Watching: Ambulance on Netflix

A fairly typically noisy Michael Bay effort but entertaining enough in a brain dead way.

3 Reading: The 500 top songs of all time from Billboard magazine

Del Shannon in at 100

4 Reading: Seth Godin's blog

The next one

When asked what his favorite composition was, Duke Ellington said, “the next one.”

This is the essence of the artistic process. When we’re in the liminal space between now and what is about to come, we’re fully alive.

5 Reading: Ken Grace's column on Substack

Overtime: 

"When you tolerate an error, you rob yourself of learning.

When you ruminate on an error, you rob yourself of happiness.

Notice it, improve it, and move on from it."

James Clear

Senses working overtime #441

1 Feeling at the start of this week

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

2 Feeling at the end of this week (4 day weekend)

Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

3 Watching: Beckham (Netflix)

As a life-long Arsenal fan I had to work hard at watching the MUFC scenes but I did enjoy watching the human drama that unfolded for David Beckham the person (rather than the brand).

4 Watching: The All Blacks Vs The Pumas

5 In praise of: Wellington's Slow Boat Records

Overtime: The miracles of daily life

"Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you:
a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting,
a bee humming, a raindrop falling,
a snowflake wafting along
the clear evening air.
There is magic everywhere.
If you learn how to live it,
life is nothing short of a daily miracle."

Yoga teacher and spiritual leader Sadhguru

 

Senses working overtime #440

1 The feeling this week as I went back for Term 4

Photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash

2 Reading: Hotel California - Barney Hoskyns

3 Reading: Perfect Sound Whatever - James Acaster

4 Listening: Perfect Sound Whatever playlist on Spotify

Beware - this playlist is huuuuuuuuge. There are a couple to choose from on Spotify but each one provides a fulsome record of all the songs and albums that James mentions in his book.

5 Listening: Jackie McLean - McLean's Scene

I used this as a bit of an antidote to the chaos of the week. The whole album is great but track 1 side two, the ten minute plus title track, did the bizniss.

Overtime: 

from We Zonked Him Into Being Whorlmless He said he was trying to start in the middle of a sentence And move in both directions at the same time. David Melnick (1988)