Your Most Vivid Fears Virtually Never Come True - Seth's Blog

My older brother posted a very short post which I'm cheekily gonna expand on for once, rather than post a very short precis of what he wrote...

...He essentially says that we always attend to the people/situations/organizations that scream at us the most - at the price of neglecting those things most important to us, that will actually move us along.

I know I do this. Someone calls with an urgent job, a request to cover for them, or a bill reminder comes in and instead of saying, in the nicest possible way "screw ya, I'm going to spend the afternoon researching a field I'm interested in", or brainstorming this or that idea, or even just reading a book or going for a walk,mass panic sets in we fall in line like lemmings (do they fall in line? I know it's a myth that they commit mass suicide. Oh well,we  unthinkingly fall into line anyway).

Noone wants to be the worm that turns, the one that doesn't do what everyone else is doing and runs the risk of all the vivid shock horror images people have of being buried in a pauper's grave as a penalty for standing up for themselves. It's the mentality that keeps people in a shitty job earning a pittance and going nowhere, forever attending to 'urgent' matters, failure in which will result in sure death.
 
I should know I was one of the lemmings myself once. So give yourself a break. Literally if need be. Just remember all those fears of plane/car crashes, financial ruin, murder, disastrously failed relationships etc., whilst they can happen, very rarely do so, and shouldn't be a reason for you to destory your own life every bit as much (only in a much more protracted way) as those catastophes would. In fact those that believe int he law of attraction (don't think that includes Seth but I can't be sure) would have it that it's solely the relentless thrashing of self with these bogie stories that ends up in them becoming reality.

Not sure this is exactly what Seth meant but I've enjoyed running with the ball for once..

Britain Wins a Gold in the Winter Olypmics!..

..I still hang my head in shame and colour up to the extent that I don't need to worry about winter heating whenever I think of that ski jumper...but at last there's something to be genuinely, if not proud of, reassured by.
Despite having no winter to speak of (although I gather this year was an exception) and a multiplicity of better things to do than stand around in the cold watching a couple of square jawed, android like and seemingly  utterly humourless men/women move around on snow and ice, "we" have bagged a gold in the winter olympics, and it's only a few days in!
So well done, Amy Williams, who managed to beat a load of the aforementioned nordic types and/or local Canadians in the alarmingly-named skeleton event, to bag Britain's first gold in the games in 30 years!
Actually I don't know why I'm coming out with this 'we' and 'us' stuff, when I'd normally disapprove of such misplaced jingoism (can jingoism ever be 'placed'? I don't know), given that I (and you) had absolutely nothing to do with her success or otherwise. Reminds me of a sketch I like..

Stupid Questions I've Asked on Yahoo Answers Down the Years and Selected Answers. No. 2

..this was before Miliband...


Question posed:
"Home Secretary Job Description?

Is pomposity a prerequisite for the position of Home Secretary of the UK? I saw an article from the latest in a long line of puffed up middle aged men (Blunkett, Clarke etc) in which he announced he's 'not a quitter'. Which is the UK population's loss. But there again any successor would be the same".

Selected Answers:

1. Must be Scottish and an ex communist.
2. Must be able to spin his failures into successes.
3. Must be able to dodge criticism by wheeling out his junior ministers to take the flak.
4.Must be willing at all times to blame previous Home Secretaries for the fact that the Home Office is not fit for purpose.

Yes, yes, yes...-ed 
 

To be fair Labour is not capable of coming up with a better candidate than John Reid - he should not be removed. He is definately the best they can manage.

Ok but you've committed the 'definately' misdemeanour so why should anything you say or do be taken account of? - ed

Must be able to take responsibility for the poor practises of previous post holders.Must also be able to blame their poor performance on the practises of previous post holders.Must also be fat, middle aged and boring
or just plain blind.

Ha ha, like it - ed 

Inept, clueless, brainless or braindead, arrogant, totally incompetent and helps if your also corrupt!!!!

Got you - ed. 

The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the United Kingdom Home Office and is responsible for internal affairs in England and Wales, and for immigration and citizenship for the whole United Kingdom (including Scotland and Northern Ireland). In certain other countrie....
this has been cut short given that it was the actual job description and so failed to answer the question in the spirit in which it was asked (and was just copied and pasted from wikipedia I think).- ed

Thought For the Day No. 7 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

 ..religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

 To love is to show goodness. We all understand this love and cannot understand it otherwise. But love is not found only in words, but in the actions we perform for the sake of others.


Do not search for pleasures; rather, be prepared to find pleasure in all that you do.
John Ruskin

Cliches and Stereotypes are a Good Thing - Seth's Blog

Some weeks ago the wooden house crew posted about annoying cliches and stereotypes. Unbeknownst to us, the two words are synonymous for more reasons than one; they actually have a common root, as Seth posted today here .
Creative gaon and soothsayer for whatever generation we are in now that he is, Seth was able to identify something positive from cliches, something we'd never done here.
The turning things on their heads bit I like a lot (e.g. Richard Branson is hardly what you'd call a steretypical CEO; I wonder how an ESL teacher wearing an expensive Italian suit would go down? Probably quite well in this part of the world).
Anyway he trumps us once again and manages to be both thought provoking and entertaining at the same time - how about that for a cliche!




Couldn't be arsed to find the e grave symbol on new keyboard for the word 'cliche' - ed

Mänd is much better than Lepp..

...I've discovered that mänd (pine wood), even if it's been lying around a bit in the snow and gotten wet, is superior to white alder. It burns for much longer (you only need to turn your back on the alder and it does a Hiroshima there and then in your grate) thus giving more heat, or better value heat for money, or something like that.
It does generate Pompeiian amounts of ash though (one day I'll stop using spurious metaphors but not today) which together with having to trim the dry bits off as kindling to get the fire going (you can stack the wet stuff around the sides, it dries out like, erm...Gerard Depardieu's farm in "Jeanne de Florette") makes for more work (boo!).
Watch out for more dubious tips later on this winter...

Thought For The Day No. 6 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

..religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

"In ancient times, even in the Middle Ages, people believed that not all nationalities were equal, and some, such as the Persians, Greeks, Romans or French, were better than the others. We can no longer believe this...Nationalism is a prejudice based on the inequality of peoples".

L. Tolstoy again.

On This Day 350 Years Ago...Pepys' Diary

 13 February 1660...in the weeks leading up to the restoration...

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albermarle was a very shrewd character who had been a royalist general in the civil war but later manged to be the governor general of Scotland under Oliver Cromwell. By this time he had led an unopposed army down to London in support of the Parliament (which had been in disarray since Oliver Cromwell's death a couple of years before) and like every true political survivor/collaborator, keeping his true political colours very close to his chest. The ensuing parliament was strongly royalist in its nature and led to the restoration of Charles II as King.


This day Monk (sp.) was invited to White Hall to dinner by my Lords; not seeming willing, he would not come. I went to Mr Fage from my father's, who had been this afternoon with Monk, who did promise to live and die with the City, and for the honour of the city; and indeed the City is very open-handed to the soldiers, that they are most of them drunk all day, and had money given them.