Words as pegs

No, not the drinking kind 🙂
I didn’t have my glasses on, & didn’t quite see the tiny fibre on the nib as I was writing this. The funny shape of ‘ha’ in that quote was the result.
Warm up drills and exercises haven’t been a thing for me for a few days and I can feel the shakes as I write cold.

Time travel

A part of my routine includes writing a journal.
Paper & fountain pen.
It’s my way of tending to the garden of my mind, which tends to be overgrown with weeds.
The weeds grow pretty quickly, nurtured & watered by the emotions of the day.
Writing is how I remove the weeds from one small area of the mind.

I write in whatever notebooks I find lying around, usually cheap notebooks that we buy for the kids.
For last decade or so, I’ve not thrown them out with the garbage.

$0.10 each when blank.

I picked one of them at random this morning, & it turned out to be from 2014, March.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. It’s impossible to remember what I was thinking and feeling  and worried about 6 years ago.  Using a journal to time-travel (or space travel) is a little bit of my idea of fun. Also why I enjoy reading.

There was no entry dated 7 March, but there was one for the 5th, made in the evening.  I’d not discovered the treasure trove of learning how to use the writing tools well, so my handwriting is barely legible.

For a little context, it was a time of upheaval at work with the usual restructures et al.
I had my desk in a corner of the basement garage.

 

05 Mar 14, 8:01 pm
 

Another day passes him by. A day full of pretend business and busy-ness. Meetings. Passing paper around. Or e-paper. Practising politics. Pretending things are more important than they really are.

But lest this become all doom and gloom, he discovered a blog by a Sydneysider, “Life and other crises”, by Kerri Sackville. An entertaining writer no doubt, but it was her secret self-help tool that inspired the writing style in this 3rd person today. He wants to see if this is useful or merely a passing curiosity.

The Toastmasters contest needed more contestants in this speech evaluation, so he decided he would take part. He was disqualified on time grounds, but had fun nonetheless. Imagery was widely used by all the speakers throughout. It was as if each took some random color & threw it on to the grey matter in everyone’s brain & magically created a masterpiece in each one of the audience’s minds. 

He witnessed another master communication in action, the CEO, & the fear in the MD’s eyes & body during a “meet-the-folks-who-pay-my-lifestyle” meeting. People pretend they are uncaring about the whole affair, while each one, internally, is terrified of the changes that will shortly be unleashed. 
His wife was here, inviting him back into real life, so head upstairs he will. And must.

 

Premature worry

Many of our troubles are as much a figment of our imagination as our achievements.

These “fear & worry” thoughts have a free tenancy in my head, still here long after they ended being useful. These daily practices, trivial as they seem, help to kick out these persistent infiltrators, one day at a time.

A little humor helps more than anything else.

Also, I forgot todays date as I was writing it down 🙂

One day at a time…

Some days, it’s harder to get out of bed. 
To do what is otherwise easy. 
Or necessary.
To do the work.
To listen.
To say the things that need saying…like “thank you” and “I love you” and “You did a great job”…
To ask for help.
To smile. 
To have fun.
Today’s reading was a good reminder. 
One day at a time is enough.
Also, flourishes are hard?

Meditation

I’ve not meditated for a few months now, a practice I used to do religiously, that requires just sitting down. My meditation has morphed into writing a quote every day, after reading a short passage from a book I always have around me.

For me, the act of writing involves the process of getting my pens, nibs, inks, paper, positioning the chair, and myriad other things. It is my active meditation, done in the moments before the silence of the night is gently shaken by the birds beginning their day.

Angels as creative forces

We are not alone in the universe. We are surrounded by mighty creative forces. When you are needed by others, when you have something valuable to contribute, these beneficial forces will support you, give you greater health, greater energy levels, longer life and deeper creativity. Life may strike at you, and challenges can hurtle themselves against you, but you will feel equal to them. Deeper forces from within will support you, hold you up, and act as a shield. – Eknath Eswaran