its-okei

[its-okei]

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, …

[its-okei]

— Petal Dance (2013) “I thought it might be nice…to have some time to not think.”

[its-okei]

I'm going to procrastinate reading this.

Sam’s Guide to Dealing with Procrastination

Procrastination is all about anxiety. 

It takes two forms. The first is difficulty starting a task and the second is distraction dealing with the task. Now, you must first become AWARE of the mental processes going on when you are procrastination. Let’s say you are assigned an essay for a class. You have two weeks before it is due. It’s not a long essay just ten pages. The days tick off. You haven’t started. In the beginning you are hardly bothered. A little nagging voice is all you hear. That voice is ego. This is ego’s real purpose i.e. to spur us on to do what we need to do. Now, the closer the deadline the greater the anxiety. Ego uses fear as its whip. When the fear overcomes your resistance you will start but not until. 

Here are some useful indicators that will help you know when you’re procrastinating:

Filling your day with low priority tasks from your To Do List.

Reading e-mails several times without starting work on them or deciding what you’re going to do with them.

Sitting down to start a high-priority task, and almost immediately going off to make a cup of coffee.

Leaving an item on your To Do list for a long time, even though you know it’s important.

Regularly saying “Yes” to unimportant tasks that others ask you to do, and filling your time with these instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list.

Waiting for the “right mood” or the “right time” to tackle the important task at hand.

Fear. It is all about fear. Starting the project holds fear for us. Plus there is our natural tendency to avoid the unpleasant and focus on what we like to do. So what’s the secret to getting started before the panic sets in?

The Inner Workings of Procrastination the ABCs 

A = Activating Event. The activating event is whatever you are putting off, such as studying, tests or unpleasant tasks.

B = Belief System. These are your “hidden” feelings about the task; your feelings govern your motivation. If you have negative feelings, you will tend to put off or delay. These feelings control your response.

C = Consequence. This is what we actually do. There are two approaches: rational and irrational. A rational response is “I don’t like writing papers at all, but I had better get going on it anyway.” An irrational approach is “I hate writing papers, and even though it’s due next week, I’ll start it later.”

The fact is, all tasks are really neutral. Examine your belief system, understand why you dislike the task, then change your way of thinking.

Organize. 

One of the reasons we don’t start is because our task is undefined, uncertain. Set it out clearly and it works. An action plan is a device used in business and the professions to aid in meeting a goal. They are useful in our personal lives as well. 

Action Plan

The Action Plan is a kind of expanded “to do” list. We start by setting a long term goal. Then under that long term goal we list the short term goals necessary to achieve the long term goal. We arrange them chronologically and in order of priority. Then under each short term goal we list the steps needed to get there in the order they need to be accomplished. 

Each step must be a single achievable event. If necessary you can then make sub-steps. When you are done you will have a blueprint for achieving your long term goal in precise order and broken down into easy achievable steps. Once this is done do step number one on short term goal number one. Then you are well on your way. Do not skip this step. You must do at least the first action.Here is a simple example of an Action Plan:

[its-okei]

Sometimes I think the Navajo had it right… there has only ever been one wind in the world.

One wind blowing for all time, one wind touching all of us, one wind moving in all of us, one wind we call many names.

I don’t know any other way to explain how seeing you, outside, the wind in your hair, could seem like the whole world.

- Peregrine

[its-okei]

This adaptation of Alice through the Looking Glass from 1998 is super! Watch it!

[its-okei]

The only thing real under the sun is sadness because sadness does not cheat its owner

Unknown

[its-okei]

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

[its-okei]

by Emily Dickinson (whose religion was poetry)

I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise –

[its-okei]

The etymology of lady is from hlaf-dige, or loaf-maker. The lord was the hlaf-ward, or loaf-protector. How ironic that our word for lady in English means bread-winner! It makes me wonder at what point in history men stopped being lazy (or stealing other's bread) and started making bread themselves? Then instead of stealing bread, they stole the lady's title for being the bread-winner.

[its-okei]

The founder of a united English kingdom, little Athelstan, the boy who would be King, with his aunt Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, ruling Mercia from 910 to 918, warrior against the Danes, founder of many cities, eldest daughter of King Alfred the Great.

[its-okei]

Agnes Obel — Fuel to Fire Do you want me on your mind? Or do you want me to go home? I might be yours As yours as I can say Be gone be far away

Roses on parade They follow you around Upon your shore As sure as I could say Be gone be far away

Like fuel to fire

To the town we'll go And to your hideaway Where the towers grow Gone to be far away Sit quietly alone.

Eyes want to cry And do the under Upon your shore As sure as I could say Be gone be far away

Oh, what a day to choose Torn by our All I say to you Is like fuel to the fire

To the town we'll go And to your hideaway Where the towers grow Gone to be far away Never do we know Never do they give away Where the towers grow Only you will lead us there

Sit quietly alone Sit quietly alone

[its-okei]

One-Liners

I just swapped our bed for a trampoline - the wife hit the roof! Why did the scarecrow win the Nobel prize? Because he was out-standing in his field Two fish in a tank. One fish said to the other, "how d'you drive this thing?" What's with hedgehogs? Why can't they share the hedge? A book just fell on my head. I've only got my shelf to blame. When it rains, my children run round and round the house shouting, "It's raining! It's raining!". I say, "So what?" They say, "So let us in!" I read in the paper about dwarves being pickpocketed. How could anyone stoop so low? You know you are fat when you hug a child and it gets lost. I used to work in a shoe-recycling shop. It was sole-destroying. I heard a rumour that Cadbury is bringing out an oriental chocolate bar. Could be a Chinese Wispa. I told my wife the Chinese Whisper joke this morning - no response, nothing, not even a Snicker! I'm in a same-sex marriage... the sex is always the same. My friend told me he was going to a fancy dress party as an Italian island. I said to him 'Don't be Sicily'. The Pope is a lot like Doctor Who. He never dies, just keeps being replaced by white men. Last night me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the telly. I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can't even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails. My friend died doing what she loved ... Heroine. I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The good thing about lending someone your time machine is that you basically get it back immediately. Two Chinese guys break into a distillery. One guy says to the other: "Do you think it's whiskey?" The other replies "Not as whiskey as wobbing a bank" On the back of a jar of peanut butter: Contains peanuts (Well I never.....). Microwave on full power for 5 minutes, stand for 1 minute (no point starting a good book then). If you are registered blind, leave this page blank. Man goes for job on building site. Foreman asks him "can you make tea?", man replies back "yes I can" and foreman then asks him "and can you drive a fork lift truck" and man replies back "how big is the f..king teapot?" I was walking down the street the other day and saw a man carrying a long stick, I said "Are you a pole-vaulter?" and he replied "No, I'm German but how did you know my name was Walter?" What's it like living with voices?......I hear you ask. Priest pretends he is too ill to conduct Sunday service so he can play golf. St Peter complains to God. "No matter I'll teach him lesson" says God. On the golf course the priest hits holes in one from the 1st to the 18th tee and celebrates wildly to himself. St Peter turns to God in amazement; "don’t worry" explains God, "who is he going to tell?" If you rearrange the letters in the words Faith and Religion, you can make "Microwave." No, don't test it or question it, just believe me. I have a very small Newt as a pet. Its minute! Man walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. So the barman gives him one. My wife was once attacked by a mime, he performed unspeakable acts on her. If poison goes out of date, does it become more or less deadly? I was walking through Soho, when this lady came up to me and asked me if I wanted to sleep with her for a hundred quid. I said it was very kind of her and I could use the money, but I wasn't really tired... Asked the bank teller if she could check my balance, she said, "stand on one leg".

[its-okei]

Another old favourite: Kirtana Rasa from Estonia

[its-okei]

Estonian music by Somnambuul

[its-okei]

Bryan Stevenson | W Need To Talk About An Injustice. "One out of three black men between the ages of 18 and 30 is in jail, in prison, on probation or parole… 50 to 60 percent of all young men of color are in jail or prison or on probation or parole. Our system isn’t just being shaped in these ways that seem to be distorting around race, they’re also distorted by poverty.

[…]

I was giving some lectures in Germany about the death penalty. It was fascinating because one of the scholars stood up after the presentation and said, “Well you know it’s deeply troubling to hear what you’re talking about.” He said, “We don’t have the death penalty in Germany. And of course, we can never have the death penalty in Germany.” And the room got very quiet, and this woman said, “There’s no way, with our history, we could ever engage in the systematic killing of human beings. It would be unconscionable for us to, in an intentional and deliberate way, set about executing people.” And I thought about that. What would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation state of Germany was executing people, especially if they were disproportionately Jewish? I couldn’t bear it. It would be unconscionable. And yet, in this country, in the states of the Old South, we execute people — where you’re 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black, 22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white — in the very states where there are buried in the ground the bodies of people who were lynched. And yet, there is this disconnect.”

[its-okei]

panatmansam:

Yesterday I made the comment that “institutions cannot be racists”. It lead to some confusion so I thought I would clarify. Institutions can be used by racist individuals to foster racism. At various times religious organizations and the Bible have been so used. So too, in the 19th and early 20th…

Hi Sam. There is such a thing as institutional belief. Whether it's racist or not in a given situation is not the point of this message, only awareness that it can be, so people can see for themselves how it sometimes is. I think your fallacy is thinking an institution is a sum of its individuals but it’s more than this because the individuals represent a common community and so might act on community beliefs (which none of the community might believe at a personal level). In other words it’s possible for example to have a society where we all know and are friends with black people and don’t see any differences in colour, but the moment we take on an institutional role, say as a police officer, we see blacks as a greater statistical threat (even if we are a black police officer), so are more likely to stop and search, or to antagonize, and this in turn makes black members of society more likely to get caught in crime statistics and you have an institutional cycle.

Maybe institutional racism works at the level of ideas, not at the level of people. I do get what you’re saying about victims prolonging their victimhood, and we’ve discussed in the past how I agree with you about the danger of this.

You’re saying don’t keep hurting yourself from Buddha’s second arrow (the one in the mind) but still we got to respect and give time and space to heal from the first arrow (there are examples where injustices are continuing to this day). And the point is that sometimes there’s a third arrow which is really not our own mind, but the ideas in the minds of a collective which continue to cause harm. I think this is the meaning of institutional racism. It's when the first arrow gets fired again (and again) and (like a punishment given in a law court by society as a whole) no individual has responsibility for it.