WHY NOT MAKE A LIST

A friend introduced me to a site that's pretty cool. 43 Things lets you share things you would like to do. It's a cool idea, although I doubt I will do too many of things I've listed. Check it out and, if you start your own list, let me know.

A NEW LOVE

I have a good internet connection, so I thought I'd share what's exciting me right now. Two words...Planet Earth. It is the best thing to watch. The images are amazing. And I have learned so much about this blue orb. It helps put everything into place...all our endless pursuits for success, happiness, wealth. When you see the struggles that so many animals have to suffer daily, you really question the importance we place on such material things. And I call 'happiness' material because, as Americans, we have made it so.
Ironically, I have been reading the cover story of the latest National Geographic. After decades of scientists claiming that animals work only as machines, they are returning to the belief Darwin espoused so long ago, that animals, no matter how simple the creature, are thinking beings. Their emotions may be much simpler, but perhaps that is to an advantage. They are not endlessly worrying about how much money they have, or whether the relationship they're in is good. Their focus is on one thing: survival. The barest of necessities are quite often all they rely on. There are no cell phones, no humvees, no gucci. Just fight or flight. It wasn't too long ago that we existed the same way. Many call it progress, but considering I sell more self-help books than anything else and the sales of anti-depressants are at an all-time high, I beg to differ.
But I digress into yet another rant. And what I really want to do is encourage anyone who may read this to watch this BBC series. I'm even considering buying it because I could watch those images over and over and not tire of them. Please, do yourself a favor and watch it. I will leave you with one of many images I found from the dvd. It is a male bird of paradise displaying for a female and is absolutely beautiful.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

I know I promised to talk more about synchronicity in my next blog, but random events have made me change direction. ;^)
As readers of this blog have probably discerned, I have been down in the dumps quite often lately. This fact has caused distress which in turn has added to my melancholia. How funny is that? It's all just a vicious cycle. But there is hope, perhaps, on the horizon. I recently found out about a book that may help. Against Happiness is a book that addresses several issues-namely that the pursuit of 'the American dream' (aka happiness) could eventually eradicate melancholia, thereby effecting such things as art, literature, and music. Think about it. What would Van Gogh's art look like if he were happy? Probably lots of fields of big, yellow sunflowers and no starry nights. Would Emily Dickinson have written poetry if she married and had 2.4 children, a house, and a white picket fence?
I have come to the realization that the pursuit of happiness will kill me much sooner than my embracing my sadness. It's not even about finding the little things that make me happy anymore. It has become my need to find more creative releases for the blues that I feel. That's not to say I don't feel at ease sometimes. But focusing on why I was down was consuming me and making me lash out.
The truth I've come to accept is that I can no longer try to make myself happy. The American dream is NOT mine. I don't want children or a husband. I don't care if I own a house or lots of clothes and other stuff. If I'm sad today, that's o.k. If it lasts for a week, so be it. What I want now is to stop dwelling on it and move on.
I'll keep you updated on how this goes. Just know that sometimes this blog may be used as a means of release. If you can stand the rants, read on.

AHHH SYNCHRONICITY...

What a wonderful thing! I have been experiencing, in several different ways, the power of it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. And I found this entry to be absolutely fascinating. I'd like to share a few favorite quotes and I will explain my recent multiple exposures to the Big S on the next blog.
Enjoy the following and if you have the time, check out the Wikipedia entry and it's many interesting links.

• "Jung coined the word to describe what he called 'temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events.'"
• "One of Jung's favourite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice: 'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.'"
• Terence McKenna used the term 'Cosmic giggle' to mean 'a randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly. Should you be caught up in it, it will turn reality on its head. It is objective and subjective, simultaneously "really there" and yet somehow is sustained by imagination and expectation....'"

Ok, I know it's The Police, but I love the lyrics to this song. They're kind of long, but this song paints an interesting portrait of synchronicity:

Synchronicity Ii

Another suburban morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall

We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies
We can't hear anything at all
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustrations
But we know all her suicides are fake

Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take
Many miles away something crawls from the slime at the
Bottom of a dark Scottish lake

Another industrial ugly morning
The factory belches filth into the sky
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today
He doesn't think to wonder why
The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts on a red light street
But all he ever thinks to do is watch
And every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch
Many miles away something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish lake

Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race
Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break
He sees the family home now looming in the headlights
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache
Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the
Shore of a dark Scottish lake