Taking Steps to Infuse Life With The Ingredient of Maturity

The self-awareness in my life I am fortunate to have lends itself to taking a neutral stance. Self-awareness is one of the primary characteristics of someone acting maturely.

Years ago, in the late 2000s, when I was thirty-ish, I heard a public speaker who was talking about someone I took to be the famous philosopher of relationships, writer John Gray. The man proposing Gray’s books appeared certain about his suggestion.

Not too long before, a lady had given me Gray’s blockbuster, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. If you’re sensitive, you’ll have experienced coincidences of that same sum and substance. I chose to peruse Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and I enjoyed it enough to get intrigued to discover what else Gray had said in his books.

Photographer: Stephen Rahn

At our library, I found Gray’s very first book, which is What You Feel, You Can Heal. I read what Gray wrote about surviving homelessness when he was in the springtime of life. He talked with individuals he met en route, asking himself what was genuinely upsetting these individuals. Gray evidently thought he might be able to light the way for those struggling.

Gray thought of life experiences that he felt are universally true. He wrote, in What You Feel, You Can Heal, that when people reach their mid-thirties, it is time for them to get down to raising a dependent, whether an animal, or a person. And at the age of 42, individuals are ready to experience what it’s like to be in a community, people together forging more than the sum of their parts.

I was reading my favourite blog last night, the title Beauty Beyond Bones, and I saw she wrote she was just so tired of men who wouldn’t grow up. It didn’t sound like she was having the most splendid time at the moment.

As she is confident in saying, God is good. Beauty Beyond Bones can be found here: https://beautybeyondbones.com/

She is also a Patreon creator. Look here: https://beautybeyondbones.com/support-bbb-on-patreon/

I like reading her blog on a Monday or a Thursday evening. She also does a Wednesday evening post, where she shares recipes, but I’m not such a talented kitchen hand.

Incongruously, I’ve got an interest in Star Wars. I like cinema, I think Star Wars is absorbing, but it crossed my mind that it might not be the kind of priority that’s too impressive for someone of my level. I’m evaluating how mature I am.

I’ve tweeted a few times about Disney. I enjoyed most aspects of the task–my dear mother reading my thoughts on the Star Wars movies, told me I must be an expert! Thanks for that.

On the subject of Beauty Beyond Bones, last night that blog cast back what it’s like going into the 2020s. The author’s a beautiful young lady. Her blog has many thousands of subscribers, and of course, she doesn’t need to be concerned unduly with undeserving men.

I like reading her because she’s Catholic, and she lives in the Big Apple, and she has charm. She’s a great blogger.

There are changes I would like to make about myself, in light of the number of years I’m racking up, but I do need a strategy to get there (somewhere better than here, ostensibly). I like some of the YouTube videos about motivation or strategies to make life improvements.

Photo: Jonas Svidras @ STEP.CAMERA

You’re welcome to like, to follow and or/to comment on this post. Do take care, and may there be happy tidings.

I am grateful to the Beauty Beyond Bones blog, for its inspiration. It’s Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Why Looking Backward at 2019 is Worse than a Bad Valentine

I wrote this three months ago, the beginning of the winter that changed lives around the world. I realize that despite my intention to offer kind wishes, nobody got what they wanted when the last month became unprecedented in history.

I didn’t factor into the equation how long we would be at the same task. Speaking in terms of temperature forecasts, some days were more tolerable than others.

Today the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario ordered all non-essential businesses closed. They had already begun reacting to the new restrictions. When I raised the point with my dad the last couple of times we spoke together, he said that a cemetery is considered an essential service.

Photographer:
Elliott Chau

My dad has a business and we have an agreement that I will do some work for the cemetery which the business operates. The agreement is becoming strained, of course, because of the recession.

My mom asked me quietly why I seem disinterested. I wasn’t sure how to emphasize sympathy was the issue, given that the present events around the world are tragic and discouraging.

I decided to update this because that was kind of one winter I might be happy to put behind me. Seeing a copy of TROS was nice, though.

A week or so after a lovely Christmas rest and a pleasant New Year’s Day, we finished last year rather indignantly when a brushfire spread to one of our trees, a fire which we had to extinguish.

    My mother turned seventy years old in December.  She has been enormous for me, obviously, beyond what I can succinctly talk. She said she was pleased when she saw for herself this post.

    I remember when Mom was asking me as Christmas approached what Christmas TV programming I might get to see, and she reminded me that a lot of the network TV shows are having their mid-season hiatus.  It’s sort of in their absence, especially, that the network shows feel relevant and add heaps of joy to the calendar year.

   I don’t have the foggiest idea whether you have a sentiment for January, or if nothing else be alongside associates with who you can explore the winter month of January.  I know from the weight of popular interest in romance, and relationships, that there is something intrinsically human and good about the romance of winter.

Seeing the tree that had been alight

    While I’m a Canadian, I live in the southern ranges, where lake impact temperatures are generally sensible, while keeping you inside a greater amount of the time than you may somehow prefer to spend. Some people have that flair to form a unit that stops a problem, and sometimes, even if it is as routine as waiting for the cast of, for example, The Bachelor, to reconvene.

    I risk appearing to be dismal if I reflect what getting in some Bachelor may accomplish for me.

    It could prove, by the fact that I help at a cemetery, that being morose lives for me in a heart of darkness, but tempering that with an appetite for uplifting and curious experiences, you have in me, not a pack animal nor a reptile, but, I feel, an effusive human being, making a sound perceptible in its absence.

No Perceptible Difference By Its Presence or Absence – Aristotle

You don’t have a clue what you have until it’s gone, maybe, but I don’t know now that our certainties for the future have been upset what to expect entirely, nor, I take it, does anybody. Remember that prayer often provides relief.

Why You Shouldn’t Watch Halloween Horror in Bed (Notwithstanding @DarkCorners3)

Today is the day that Canadians go to the ballot box. The results will become clear this evening, but the CBC cable news channel is having a great day as the sun stretches over the land.

I am not as interested in that as I am in enjoying these days before Halloween.

About last week, The Stupendous Wave said that Lucasfilm would air a trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker during Monday Night Football, but there was no such trailer. It was a rumor.

Geeks + Gamers discussed what happened with the spurious announcement, pointing out that Esquire picked up the story. Geeks + Gamers in truth remain skeptics of the possibility that the Skywalker Saga will get a satisfying resolution. They were none too happy with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

CNET reported yesterday that the final trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer is airing tonight on ESPN. There have been three official trailers.

The first shows Kylo Ren descending upon Rey, from the sky. It is certainly a bit of fun.

More recently, we got the eerie D23 trailer to enjoy. Many of the moments in that one are edited together from earlier Star Wars movies.

Photographer: Alex Wong

As this month is October, certain film fans need to enjoy a horror film every night of the month, not an uncommon practice. Horror film devotees often have a custom of announcing a choice of horror film for each night of October.

It impresses me that these fans don`t begin dreaming of awful matters. I think I would begin to have nightmares, visually ingesting that much horror. All the same, I have been able to glean insights into what major horror film fans consider worthy.

Photographer: Alexandr Baranets

There is a weekly horror film tweet by @DarkCorners3 who is known for the web-series Dark Corners Reviews. The gentleman has made many videos highlighting horror films. His channel is a library of both obscurities and classics.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7789792.Robin_Bailes

Earlier this month I made a reply to one of those weekly review tweets, that was not only brilliantly retweeted by @DarkCorners3 himself, but also by Hammer Horror Films (@FilmsHammer). So I looked again at Dark Corners Reviews.

I listened to his discussions of Peter Cushing, in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, in the 1960s and 70s, and F. W. Murnau, who directed the vampire film Nosferatu, in the 1920s. @DarkCorners3 has clear intelligence for such matters, elaborating on many details of those films that I wasn’t aware of.

I tried to again think of something to match the tone of the reviews of @DarkCorners3. The movie Thor occurred to me, the dark fantasy. Actress Natalie Portman is in the cast as scientist Jane Foster, as is actor Chris Hemsworth as Thor the Avenger.

“So is this how you normally look?“ Jane asks.

“More or less,“ counters Thor.

“It’s a good look!“ exclaims Jane.

Naturally, there was a sequel to Thor two years later, Thor: The Dark World.

Thor is a film that may spare you nightmares, so it could be perfect viewing this month, getting comfy under the sheets, for not feeling like you are dodging the custom of watching something too, too scary.

Thor isn’t a Hammer film, of course, but don`t be deterred, if you are fond of stories of defenders of Earth. Actress Natalie Portman fascinates. The film is also popular enough that there is a good chance you`ve seen it, but by going back to again enjoy the 2011 Marvel adaptation, you could do worse.

You`re welcome to like this, to follow, and/or to comment.

How Halloween Resolutions are Making the World a Better Place

In What Ways Might We Find a Little Magic in Affirming Halloween?

Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is a yearly remembrance on 5 November, in the United Kingdom. I was there twenty years ago, in 1999, and the festivities I saw that fifth of November delighted me. I drifted among village people carrying an effigy of the infamous Guy Fawkes in procession and then setting him ablaze, burned.

He had been a traitor. Here, back in Canada, on Halloween, 31 October, of course, I get a little remorseful that I have let some fine moments pass by since, without being in the same kind of high spirit that night in the English village I was visiting.

Years later, I continue to enjoy seeing the leaves change colour, and I like seeing candy on store shelves, and spooky house decorations. I always think I could get myself a few costume elements–maybe this year will be the year I make good on my promise. I experience occasional brief pangs of regret for having spent years with less beauty and sensation as I would have liked, in my youth.

Even with as much opportunity as we have in the West, fiscal and personal and soul-satisfying, too, the calendar pages keep turning. There could be so much in the world that invigorates. I can think of one example in particular.

On the off chance that you’re visiting Iceland in winter, you are most likely wanting to see the Northern Lights, or the aurora borealis. The Northern Lights can be seen from pre-winter to spring, with the most obvious opportunity being during the nighttimes of the winter months.

Photographer: Hunter Bryant

I think of a kind of magic there could be, viewing a sky like that. If I think of seeing that, but never, I can start to feel sad. If you have the calling, you may need to go somewhere like that, to feel as though you have lived properly.

Where I live, we enjoy Halloween candy and costumes. Halloween is not officially celebrated in Iceland, so it can be thought of a blessing that in this culture, in Canada, we celebrate Halloween, Americanized Halloween. In the United Kingdom, individuals hold Halloween parties where they take on the appearance of phantoms, skeletons or other frightening figure. In that respect, Canada’s the same as there.

I tweet occasional content that I think could be valuable for the right reader, lots of it trending and about my life and yours. If you want to share in these riches, click me up at https://twitter.com/findingenvirons

Happy autumn!

15 Ways the Most Youthful Adherent to Video Research is Totally Overrated. Part III

Kittens

Photographer:
Redd Angelo

Photographer:
Greg Rakozy

This post is intended as the conclusion to two earlier posts, written and published recently.

Not to say that video doesn’t have many, many uses, sometimes even critical, I have thought of some observations debunking video.  Information learned from video research can be useful, particularly if it is assembled in a blog shared on Facebook.

I feel, historically, video research does not hold up given its artifice as evidence.  With good editing, that difficulty is somewhat rectified.  Here are five more ways that video research is overrated.  These are ways that video does not provide any more substantive information than where is otherwise available.

 

1. Twitter’s Vine, now Periscope launched people with a genius for shooting six-second long videos, usually intended to be funny, meaning that if you were a creator with a knack for coming up with hilarious six-second videos.  On Vine, you could build a reputation and attract an audience.  The problem is that Vine came to an abrupt end because behind the scenes Twitter was continually working on becoming profitable and Vine didn’t enter the equation.
   Therefore the six-second video format of Vine left the Internet.  This is an example how video did not work in a specialized format that was “cool,” new and stimulating.
2. Another way that video has failed the mainstream is the interesting but absurd idea that you can video-record phenomena, like Bigfoot, or UFOs.  An idea of going on an expedition to get a video recording of Bigfoot in his natural habitat, or UFOs in the night sky, often gets debunked by skeptics as “hoax.”  True experiences with phenomena of this kind go with a lot of excitement and potentially lasts only briefly.
   Videos of this kind are often derided, despite, of course, the additional risk that goes with trying to capture evidence of what’s alien and supernatural.  Also, there is the problem of informing on mysteries which government authorities commonly downplay.  If you want specifics about extraterrestrial astronauts, I think you will have a hard time procuring verifiable video recordings.
   It is not video research you can easily manage, despite popularity on television and on the internet.  “NASA Astronauts Discuss Extraterrestrial Life” https://binged.it/2Ga1mXi Extraterrestrial Laboratory
3. Celebrity video recordings are not a reliable example of a video that can be examined for research purposes.  A celebrity sells a brand.  Observations made by the celebrity have an end goal in mind, not a general desire to be casually revealed.
   Researching the brand might be an approach, however, to video research that you could apply, but I think finding both a starting point and an endpoint could be difficult.  It might even take researching techniques for analyzing a brand if you’ve never studied that.  I doubt that you will find in a video the best information about analyzing a brand.
   That being said, I have no doubt you can earn the skill-set to analyze a brand as it’s represented in a video.  I think the evidence for the success of the brand would be better extrapolated by looking at the brand in the market apart from its appearance in a video context.  To be fresh, I think you would have to apply some expert touches.
4. Coaching lessons in packages of a student-ready video may turn out to be somewhat dull in comparison to more novel approaches to learning.  A year ago I enjoyed completing a great WordPress course.  I took photos over the course of a couple of weeks, learning a little about photography with each and making something out of each lesson.
   I liked learning like that.  https://findingenvirons1.blog/2018/01/01/doggedly-capturing-developing-your-eye-themes-to-ring-in-the-new-year/
   If you have an opportunity to do some organized learning, I tend to think it is more fun if you can find applications you can apply in real life.  Try referencing research sources, perhaps some interactive, other than just video lessons, and I am thinking in addition about getting around the price of the video information, if it is part of a curriculum, belying how useful the information is.
   For example, a life coach offering videos to elevate your self-esteem could prove fruitless if you can’t make the lessons work, or if your intention falters and you no longer are acting in the manner required by the video curriculum.  This is important to note.  You can apply change only as much as you are mentally prepared to.
5. I want to wrap this up with the suggestion that video research could have you preoccupied and unfocused what with possibilities opening for you that are more and more seductive and complicated.  You should remember your focus; you are not going to benefit by wasting time.
   Too much video and you are not getting done anything that’s worthwhile.  I feel if you are a consumer of video from a small number of creators who have focused themselves on something relatable, the focus that puts you amid them is what will keep you thinking consistently.  By that, I mean thinking in a way that organic learning, by a process of discovery, rather than by merely looking aimlessly, will be of some benefit to you.
   Your critical thinking may engage if you proceed this way.  I would put it to you to learn in this fashion.

 

This has been a three-part post about video research and how video research is over-rated.  If you enjoyed it, you’re welcome to like this post.  You can follow and subscribe as well.  Thank you again for reading me.

15 Ways the Most Youthful Adherent to Video Research is Totally Overrated. Part I

By video research, I mean watching video content to gain information about a topic.  To render the inscrutable meaningful, I am trying to re-envision specific ideas I have about video research.  To try to make this fun, I am re-envisioning 15 ways that the progress I try to make utilizing video research actually makes an impact (for me).

This will include examples of why it is I am conjecturing the phrase video research isn’t dropped onto the page constantly.

1. The first thing that I am focusing on is when I actively became aware of the possibility of video research.  You might say the stars aligned (nearly) and I think it was when I was compelled by my younger friend B. pointing out that I could listen to youths crying out with the Internet.  This is so sensitive.
   In my defense, I both saw I could get into hard-to-tackle specifics with a computer, and also I discarded the idea to pursue B.’s style of research, which is a misnomer, as it wasn’t video being researched, it was more like gamer hack-and-slash.  In B.’s defense, he became a teacher for a living.
   [I hope he is still doing that.  He dropped off Facebook a long time ago (without an explanation).]
2. With an awareness like that, it has to be tempered with the recognition that humans require respect.  Interesting uses of Internet video express things which are unfathomable and also perhaps too sensitive to extrapolate.  The very most interesting experiences with the Internet, I think, and when outside elements of the world beyond the Internet enter and, I suppose, reflect the viewer experiencing the video, which is hard to concisely explain.
   If there is a simple explanation for this, perhaps from lecture halls or elsewhere, and you know of such a thing, forgive me.  Leave me a comment if you like.  On the simplest level, people can leave user comments for a creator who responds.
   I am pretty sure I have a few variations of that straightforward element of the Internet.
3. I think in 2018 WordPress turned 15 years old, didn’t it?  A technique for growing your blog readership, if you’re on WordPress, is to leave user comments on other bloggers’ work.  The point is that if you do this respectfully and consistently, eventually sympathetic or otherwise interested bloggers who you have contacted will reciprocate by interacting with you.
   Now you may ask me, and I am prepared for this in the eventuality it happens, “How do you know that?  You don’t seem to have much readership of note.”
   “Yes,” I will reply, not impudently, “but I simply have not devoted the focus to constantly read blogs and interact with them.  My blog, as yet, is an amateur effort.”  At that point, I hope you do not disappear abruptly, although if this is the case, that is fine, as I hope to better strategize in 2019 than I have in the past.
4. I hope to pursue this as long as it is a possibility.  What I’ve observed is that WordPress techniques are not the same as those on a more characteristically “social” platform.  I would argue that during what I’ve learned, I’ve enjoyed the process.
   I am tempted to leave this point there and then, but even with confirmation bias indicating that if I am predisposed to a set of beliefs that highly values an “art for art’s sake” attitude, the argument I want to make is that this specific confirmation bias is perfectly fine and I want to run with it in 2019.
   How then, what can you, you might ask, do to make your blog more readable?  Well, you can take it on Facebook and ask people you’ve met to read it.  That’s a tactic that can help you start a blog and potentially get results that are interesting for you.
5. We’re beginning to talk about video research, but the first thing I think of trying to approach something that’s sensitive is some obvious problems coming up right away.  These fifteen points are geared to getting your attention away from what you should do with the video you watch, and what you are already doing with your blog, or how it is you could start a blog.  The conclusion that can be drawn, and it’s not science, but a method, is that you can draw on video research to formulate something that you’d like people to read and you can put it on WordPress.
   
   I had quite a bit to say just to introduce this, so I am ending this post shortly below and picking up in the next blog post.

This first part of the 15 ways has been about a few generalities that have worked for me and a few tips that could apply to what you are doing.

These first five points are trying to get to the point, saying you can take video, turn it into blog content, get a running start with your blog, and go from there.  I am going to return with what shall be two more posts, aiming to illustrate ten more ways that you can do something more with video than just watch it.

Thanks for reading.

When I last asked my niece to let me have a photo, she was in high gear to play a frivolous game of Candy Land.  She suggested I show her in the midst of unpacking the enduring board game.  My niece is in the third grade.

10 Reasons Radical Success is the Weakest Link Part II

Updated January 13, 2022

September 24, 2018, the Stereogum music history website posted to Facebook about the fiftieth-anniversary release of The White Album.  The Beatles Announce 50th Anniversary “White Album” Reissue With Previously Unreleased Tracks

I think of The Beatles being a radical success in music history, given the enormity of their popularity, even decades later.  However, how does that view of The Beatles relate to contemporary ideas about success, and how it is won?

I have ten reasons I’m suggesting that success like what The Beatles enjoyed is actually a weak link in terms of what it means for the individual to pursue preconceived notions of success and how it is misleading.  The first four were presented in a previous blog post.  The remaining six are presented here.

Streaming services

1. Netflix is the leader of the pack, I believe, for video streaming.  They devote an enormous budget to original content and their selection of existing content is good.  That said, Disney is in the streaming video service market.  Netflix in my region is compatible with my Tivo, as are other video streaming services.
   The selection of videos on Netflix is good.  I want to step out of the chain of logic to ask if that implies that Tubi, a free video streaming service also compatible with my Tivo is a weak link.  Netflix is a completely enjoyable experience and Tubi is likewise an extra addition to the Tivo I use.
   It isn’t too hard to say which could be better assessed to be a radical success, in the future.  That said, while Netflix has been successful remaining ahead of the curve, Tubi is probably under far less pressure.  Does Tubi’s relative weak link status mean that it isn’t a success?  It is free to use.

   

   Photographer: Rawpixel.com

2. Going forward with the theory that radical success means enormous difficulty, consider the contender that could grab much of Netflix’ market share, Disney.  Disney is unlikely to be going anywhere, given its weight as an entertainment brand, being known for its films, television, toys and theme parks.
   

Which of the two, Netflix or Disney, will be more of the radical success–that a good streaming service can be?  Or will they both amount to great success?  Disney has built in family appeal, given its products are for both adults and kids alike.  Netflix has been building that kind of appeal from scratch, but persistently.  Will either Netflix or Disney be a weak link?  It seems important to me that entertainment be good, when it is accessed, or experienced.

Netflix has a reputation for spending extravagant amounts of money on shows and films.  Disney already has an enormous built-in capacity for success in the future, in addition to plans for its video streaming service.

 Will Netflix Ever Actually Make Any Money?

Photographer: Jakob Owens

3. I started this post by saying there is a fiftieth-anniversary release of The White Album coming 11/9.  From what I understand about music streaming services, Spotify has a great conversion rate bringing customers from free use of Spotify onto the premium version.  I would ask, if taken to task, whether Spotify will be a “weak link.”

From everything I can say, music with Spotify is magnificent.  It seems to be an awesome service.

It is understood that The Beatles essentially recorded The White Album live to 8-track tape, and for everything they’d done in the name of their music, they were in fact recording music that would be a bit of a farewell to their fans.  If less scrutiny was being given to the music emerging on The White Album, would The Beatles have lasted longer?  And recorded songs for longer than they did?  I think it is possible, for when something is intended to be “perfect,” it is often a departure the way a pinnacle climbed must then be descended.

US Politics 

4. If you are following my argument, you might guess that the weak link I’m referring to is the former President of the United States, Donald Trump.  An example of someone about who there is much to decry that could be a weak link is the President.

As he is someone who was a TV star, I think it is worth mentioning here the radical success that he is known for enjoying and how at the same time the President has mounting problems that he is both a radical success, being wealthy and commanding power, but also a “weak link” in that he could bring down the whole show if he is not effective.  President Trump has a knack for appearing with ferocious emphasis again and again in the news, and yet he faces so much criticism and real-life repercussions and consequences that I think he makes a great example of a “weak link” who is at the same time a radical success.

The President brings to mind so many components and elements of radical success gone wrong that it is becoming clearer all the time that the President of the United States is an extremely divisive man. Donald Trump Says China Remix

 

Photographer: Diego Jimenez

Motivated to Entrepreneurship

5. The ninth reason I want to assert that a weak link can be very much undermining is the idea that if you begin to succeed as an entrepreneur you can find yourself under more pressure than you ever anticipated facing.  Making money is many people’s idea of success, but you usually have to put in years of work to make your dreams come true.  And in this scenario, ironically, you yourself could be the weakest link if you don’t meet obstacles well.

Unless you keep improving, day in and day out, you could end up being the weak link in your organization simply owing to the fact that your luck could change.  If you have found a strategy that makes you King Midas, turning everything you touch to gold, if all of a sudden your luck changes, you may now be suddenly be faced by weakness.  The Secret to Self-Motivation | Gary Vaynerchuk’s GREATEST Motivational Speech Ever! 

Aerial view of computer laptop on wooden table

You need to keep improving and being good.  Everything that took you somewhere is behind you; you have to continue to make great decisions.  I suspect you’ll see for yourself if you falter.

6. The final reason I want to take back to Geeks + Gamers.  If you have someone, like Jeremy, who is comfortable discussing games, films, and sports, an articulate individual, who sees success coming from YouTube, from a Facebook group, from Twitch I suppose, who challenges who is at the top, as with The Last Jedi, I think it is a philosophical note to say that if you are at that pinnacle, there is any number of reasons your descent will be hastened by those who come after you.  You have to reach that pinnacle in excellent form; and you have to leave it in such a way that it endures, that there could be a fiftieth-anniversary, that there could be another billion-dollar blockbuster, that there could be a second term.  This is all vital, from a philosophical standpoint, what must be done if radical success, like the kind that spreads all around the globe, is to be achieved and then preserved. CLICKBAIT : A YOUTUBE STORY

If you have read this, please feel free to “like,” “follow,” and/or comment.

Asking if Secularisation of a Society is Bad

Just the other day, I saw a WordPress blogger asking for debate if secularisation is good or bad.  She defined it, and I take it she means the decline of the influence of religion, like, for example, the power of the Catholic Church, on society around the world.

 

https://lovableliterature.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/debate-is-the-secularisation-of-modern-society-a-bad-thing/

 

This year I made time to read Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, a novel about a man and his son trying to survive some time from now in the future when society no longer exists as it did previous to the events in the novel.  I think of church attendance preventing circumstances in our world like that in this Cormac McCarthy book.

 

If strong leaders utilize the unitary values of religious institutions in a way that helps people lead lives of better prosperity, it would be likely, I think, that people will make better progress in the world, decreasingly supernatural as it is.

 

Reading The Road, I didn’t think much supernatural dread happened to the characters, probably in part because to create their own resources they were too hard pressed to deal with the spiritual implications of society being at an end.

 

If I think about secularisation as it could relate to the plot of the novel, I think that the leaders of the world which existed before the events of the book have failed in their ability to keep the structure of its society intact.  Maybe this owes to an overall weakness in the story’s idea of religious institutions, but I can’t that except by thinking it is a possibility, judging that religious symbols seem to exist in the book.  The man on the road is a little like Jesus, set apart from others by his singularity.

Imitation of The Last Supper

There isn’t an explanation for readers of The Road why society ended–it is a question only that it is gone, and how a much harder reality supplants it, the “road” of the title.

 

Isolation is the new struggle to overcome adversity, instead of questions like how did the world’s institutions fail and what can be done now, in their absence.

 

The novel’s interesting because society as a whole is over and done and there is no solution available.  It is a story of apocalypse.

 

The man traveling in isolation with his son seems unconcerned if there were religious institutions before society fell to pieces.  I don’t see why there wouldn’t have been institutions–in every other detail I can think of in The Road it matches the world as it’s known today, which leads me to think that parts of the world in the book weren’t secularised, as our world in real life remains only in part secularised today.

Photographer: Iryna Tysiak

I tend to think that order would fragment in the event of too much secularisation because people need to feel that there is something supernatural about their lives, that they owe something to God.

 

I am optimistic about trusting religious authorities because I see a sphere of religious influence making a more positive outcome for our world.

 

I am glad to have had an opportunity to write a few thoughts on how thinking back to reading The Road helped me articulate an opinion on secularisation.

 

I was likewise glad that I took time this year to read the book by Cormac McCarthy, as well as having read Bethany’s post asking about secularisation.  The Road is the only title of McCarthy I am familiar with, but the cover of the paperback copy I read advertised that it had sold well.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’re welcome to “like,” “follow,” and/or “subscribe.”

A New Challenge: Blogging Photos and Miscellanea

Between 2011 and 2018, WordPress organized weekly photo challenges. These essays provided inspiration for bloggers to publish photos in their posts. The final photo challenge was the thirtieth of May this year, but after the surprise came that the challenges were finished, I think I will continue to blog with photos I’ve taken.

If and when other ideas come to mind, I will introduce them into the same blog, but I feel I should continue with similar enthusiasm to what I had when I was reading the photo challenges, over the last two or three years.

To get the answer what to do next, after the photo challenges ended, I turned to Quora, the site where users can pose questions and provide answers for others with a question – https://www.quora.com/

A couple of my old friends use Quora. A wonderful answer was provided by Ms. Jennifer Marshburn. What I could do next, she elegantly wrote, drawing on both her own experiences as a blogger and what she learned from similar circumstances.

You can find her answers on Quora here – https://www.quora.com/profile/Jennifer-Marshburn

The photo I took yesterday morning is of trees, in the city, sheltering a schoolhouse underneath a fabulous blue sky. I want to feature it as it is the first time I have decided for myself to be challenged to take a photo and say a few words. At the moment I took it, I was relieved I finally had an idea.

Above the Schoolhouse

WordPress has been nothing but great fun. In my case, it’s been an addition to the work I do as part of a not-for-profit cemetery in its junior operations. You can find us on the Internet here – http://www.maplelawncemetery.org/

There are a couple of other sources I would like to mention that provide additional inspiration.

Sources

How To Use Internet Images Responsibly For Blogs
Blog design mistakes you are probably making – and how to fix them

May 2 Weekly Photo Challenge: Unlikely

Today is Friday, May 4, 2018–May the Fourth is the day of the year celebrating the Star Wars canon of sci-fi. I’m not a filmmaker, although people involved in that kind of thing are certainly important 🙂 It is very nice to enjoy Star Wars on one of its most special days each year and to remember how much thought and calculation is why the original Star Wars film is so great.

On May 2, WordPress outlined a photo challenge for photography demonstrating a sense of the unexpected. To be honest, I don’t enjoy a wealth of the unexpected, but it happens from time to time that something is out of place and therefore notable.

The Monday of this week I was walking home from a jaunt when I sauntered by a little plaza here that caught me off-guard. I was on the other side of the street.

It is in the middle of expansion and redesign.

I thought at first it was being dismantled, oddly enough, but when I returned yesterday, having read the challenge the day before, I saw what was going on–money is going in.

I had reflected on this event because it was unexpected to me, that sign of development and growth when I tend to take a narrow view of progress these days. What do I know?

For me, it represented something unexpected. I was amused.

I took a couple of photos despite the overcast conditions of the afternoon. You can see the half-empty laundromat sign, the in-progress storefront, the cars signifying the value of the cozy little plaza to the town.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

That laundromat interviewed me for a job position ten or so years ago, before I was part of the not-for-profit I help operate with my dad. My job would have been to provide assistance with the washers and dryers, to take out the trash, and to make myself available a little for visitors to enjoy the Internet. This was easily an honest decade ago.

I nearly had the job. Like it or not, a neighbor I had at the time, an older friend named Doug discouraged me from starting over with the work I was lining up at the laundromat. He said I didn’t need it.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

That neighbor filled the role of brother to me, at a time when I was cordial but distant to my own brother, and I decided to abandon my plan to seek the entry work.

You know, you make a choice like that, and it is clearly significant, but it reflects how little work I actually accomplished doing until my dad retired and brought me on at the cemetery.

I had other concerns.

I remember, of the couple who ran the place, when I showed an interest in how the laundromat helped the street get online, the fellow told me to my face I seemed like Internet Terminus.

I wouldn’t trade the appropriated cool of time online for much else, however.

Ten years ago, common Internet platforms of today were a lot newer, such as Twitter and YouTube. I think Netflix was a service for DVD delivery.

I hate checking my facts. Try writing that bluntly and see how it feels. As a blogger, I am interested in being honest, and there is always that propensity to lie, to seem bigger or better than I am.

That’s quite a common phenomenon, I think.

Terminus is also the title of a sci-fi film available on Netflix. It’s the one about rejuvenation.

May the Fourth Be With You.

Wednesday, May 2’s WordPress photo challenge is an essay by Michelle Weber.

Best to Sell Your Elevator Pitch

When my maternal grandmother was in her golden years, she tried to assure me, “Don’t worry!”

 

It hasn’t been that bad.

 

Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word, “fret,” and it’s a timely choice by the folk at WordPress.

 

What’s being outlined by writers on tech around the world in the news and elsewhere is big trouble… the Cambridge Analytics scandal dealt with Mark Zuckerberg decimated trust in Facebook and cost Zuckerberg a fortune.  For someone like me, maintaining a tiny little Facebook business page to assist with the operations and goals of our likewise tiny little nonprofit, I am sure I am characteristically flabbergasted the same as so many other people struggling to market their brand on Facebook in the same boat.

 

It is potentially back to the drawing board for many.

 

Meanwhile Twitter, beginning the twenty-third of March, put into effect a change in policy that restricts marketers from tweeting the identical thing across multiple Twitter accounts, which is less a problem for me personally as I only have one Twitter account, but which is intended to scale back the impact that spammers and the like can have if they’re active on several Twitter accounts.  For example, there is far less risk that trending topics on Twitter will be launched by the dubious and artificial method of conflated Twitter accounts bringing to prominence a devious trend.

 

It is nonsense, though, because honest Twitter users who make Twitter part of their business model have far less freedom to market their brand.  It also comes on top of several months of other changes to Twitter that consistently kept people who love Twitter up in arms, like notably extending the famed hundred and forty character limit for a tweet to twice that, two hundred and eighty characters.

 

The little tweet was suddenly full on birdsong, and now, counterintuitively, restrictions are in place so that the social noise on Twitter is slowed down considerably.

 

Photographer: Mahkeo

My little blog defaults to options to share a post on both Facebook and Twitter, and now both social media giants are mired in an unpredictable morass that quiets down an outcry that until this year seemed like just a normal part of using the social media leaders.

 

Could be time to shop around.

 

Twitter finally made a quarterly profit, it is worth noting, so the changes effected under the leadership of Jack Dorsey may continue to prove effective.  For Facebook, on the other hand, the steep increase in distrust of the formerly reputable social media giant will play out a drama that will see many Facebookers transmuting their internet profiles elsewhere, or at least becoming far more aware of what can happen to data once it is committed to the Internet.

 

Photographer: Flo Karr

What’s happened with Facebook is only one page in the news-intensive deconstruction of all the trouble the United States is seeing given their leadership is so unsteady at a time when a strong technology industry is necessary for friendly waters in the face of the potential for major change in the near future when many players want as much control as possible over the cyber landscape.

 

There is every reason to fret.  Above and beyond prayer, it would be advisable to equip yourself with as much information as possible to ride the tide back to shore.  It is exciting to observe, and if you have a tidy niche from which to beam the perspective you want people to take, I’d recommend you do it with dedication and surety.

 

If you’ve read today’s post, I thank you.  Any like, follow or comment is welcome.

It was Luminescent, and It was True

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — April 10

You’re kind of lucky if life’s been luminescent for you.  That’s today WordPress daily prompt, the word luminescent.

Luminescent is a word that has a lot of connotations.  I can think of a few with ease.

You’re kind of lucky if life’s been luminescent for you.

Think of the stellar skyscape–the myth that when the moon is full, lunacy runs rampant.

Do you like monster movies?  You probably know that the wolfman transforms in the luminescence of the full moon.

This month’s full moon is the twenty-ninth and the thirtieth.  Tonight’s moon is a waning crescent.

Belief in the power of the full moon can be a devilish outlook, which I’d assert is unfortunate in the season of Easter.  We should be celebrating spring.

I am a Canadian, and while I live in the southern parts of the great nation of Canada, it is here, you might say, a short growing season.  I’m certainly envious of the good fortune of people living in more idyllic parts of the world.

The work I do, year-round, is to carry out operations in a small not-for-profit cemetery (in a junior capacity), and at times I see luminescence when I am there (usually accompanied solely by my dad).  Effects of that kind can be creepy, but there is often a benign atmosphere there as we care for the grounds and for the church.  It is generally serene.

Just past Maple Lawn Cemetery

I’m inclined to see luminescent as peaceful, which is what the cemetery really is.  I know about grief and I know people go to cemeteries to pray for the departed, but it doesn’t need to be an uncomfortable experience.  When it’s luminescent, I find the ambiance comforting.

https://about.me/patrickcoholan

You know I’m expected to be solemn.  I’m not one for a pint with the lads, shall we say.  A stab at art or writing or pastimes of that kind in a state of mind that’s luminescent is apt to be rubbish.

You have to approach creative endeavors from a point of view that’s solid.  At least do your editing sober.  It is up to you, all the same.

Jackson Pollack, for example, painted while very drunk, I believe.  Something he said on the subject is

Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn’t have as far to fall.

If I look at something I’ve posted or photographed or the like and it’s terrible, I wonder what my poor beleaguered mind was set upon.  It is easily unflattering.  More frankly, you can make a fool of yourself quite readily.  I know I have.

What I think, though, on whether you’re proven a fool is that mistakes happen–shit happens.  One takeaway from college that I have is a theatre axiom.

A little foolishness is genius.  Too much foolishness is madness.

I am not sure you should repeat that.

Youngsters if they’re inclined to creativity should have their own time to discover what’s art and what’s merely luminescent.  Time really does speed and any sane person should fully know the weight of what’s in store in the decades of adulthood and never worry about how it is luminescence plays on the heart and on the mind.

I know it’s less than profound, but you can get the same impact on yourself from drinking a basic coffee and watching a good film, like The Shawshank Redemption for example.  I don’t think it’s any better to probe personal depths and pour it out to feel your art than it is to passively and alertly watch something like a good film bringing with you a philosophical bent.

Don’t tear yourself apart.  The full moon will rise every single month of your life.