We construct our sense of self, and we experience our own very unique lives through the tool of narrative. Narrative means the story and the way its told. This is something I look for all the time during my consultations. I’m interested to notice not just the words people use but the tone of voice, the speed of speech, the hesitations, the facial expressions and the body language. The way a story is told is actually what gives the content of a story its meaning.
Have a look at this short French film (English subtitles)
It’s brilliant. Starts bland, with words that don’t convey much, but with a small piece of direction the words are said again in an entirely different way and WHAM – if it doesn’t get you, I’ll be surprised! (Well, it got me sniffing anyway!)
Tell me what you think. How aware are you of the way you say things? How aware are you of the way things are said to you?
Wow! This could be one of the best talks I’ve ever heard. Randy Pausch is a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon. They run a lecture series entitled “The Last Lecture” where a professor imagines what he’d say if he only had one lecture left to give before he died. Randy Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer not long before giving this lecture.
He called the lecture “Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams”. It’s funny, it’s inspiring and it’s deeply moving. Here is the video of the lecture. It runs for just over an hour, so I urge you to sit down, relax and watch it through. The hour will fly past, I promise you. And you’ll be SO glad you took the time to watch it.
If you’ve been as impressed by this as I was, you can find out a lot more here.
Here’s a man who knows what it is to be a hero, not a zombie……..
Dr Tom Bibey’s blog is worth reading. He’s the kind of family doctor I like. He recently posted about laughter and I thought I’d post this just for him and his good wife. Hope you enjoy it!
While you’re here, and if you feel you need something to cheer yourself up try
The Beatles were the band I grew up liking. One of the first “singles” (yes, the little, black, vinyl things!) I bought was “She Loves You”, closely followed up by “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. I don’t know how significant that is but maybe it explains a little why I am such a sucker for a good love song.
That’s part of the explanation I think, but the other is my most fundamental belief is that the world will become a better place the more love there is in it.
Anyway, here’s a song that’s new to me, and by a singer songwriter I haven’t heard before. It’s called “Better” and it’s by Tom Baxter
A big part of the debate about homeopathy centres on the issue of ultra-high dilutions of medicines. One of the explanations wheeled out is something called ‘the memory of water’ – it’s a catchy phrase but very problematic. Does water have a memory and if so, how does that work? The anti-homeopathy campaigners say it can’t be explained. In short, they say it’s implausible. More than that, they say that the difference between a starting substance and a highly diluted remedy is the difference between ‘something and nothing’. But still, I think it’s more reasonable to say it’s the difference between something and something else. One of the commenters here, Andy, asked ‘does the water retain a memory of everything else it has had in solution since the dawn of time? Or just the things that the homeopath wants it to remember?’ I rather liked that question. It got me thinking…..and I’m still thinking! But amongst the things it got me thinking about were how memory isn’t physical but water is, about how human beings are meaning-seeking/meaning-creating creatures and how we enrich our physical world with meaning, how we use language, symbolism, memory and imagination, to create an incredibly powerful presence in the world, and how experience is more than physical, more than can be measured.
So here’s the non-science bit – first off, some photos of my own. I love water and water imagery and it amazes me how diverse and complex it is. Have a browse through this slide show. I wonder how these images of water will feel to you? I wonder what they’ll mean to you?
Here’s the slide show
And then, here are some of my favourite water songs. Let’s start with Rain
I can show you that when it starts to rain, everything’s still the same
When it rains and shines it’s just a state of mind
Patty Griffin next…..
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you’re gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down
Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m holding on underneath this shroud
Rain
And, the fabulous Eurythmics –
Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you
It’s amazing how much the rain can change our emotions, our state of mind, and our mood, isn’t it?
Let’s spend a little time by the river! Rivers are so important to us. How many towns and cities grow up around rivers? Think how we use metaphors like “river of life”. Here’s Alison Krauss set to a lovely montage of BBC nature videos.
A complete change of musical genre, but keeping a religious theme, with Good Charlotte,
Baptized in the river,
I’ve seen a vision of my life,
My favourite river song about the importance of place – really, a song that gives us a real understanding of psychogeography! (the way place fashions a sense of self)
And, finally, with Christmas coming, here’s Sarah McLachlan’s version of Joni Mitchell’s The River
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
Which paintings, photos, songs, films, poems or stories come to your mind on the theme of water, and what do they mean to you?
I’m gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you’ll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you
My daughter, Amy, sent me a link to this video (I think she “stumbled” upon it – I DO recommend “stumbling“!)
I think it is WONDERFUL.
I think this is a fabulous representation of how everything is connected. Whatever we do has consequences and impacts in unpredictable ways. This is actually a great example of why a complex system is so impossible to control – the characteristics of complex systems include networks of connections between things which means that a change in any part of the system changes the whole system; that outcomes are highly dependent on the starting conditions; that emergence occurs – new phenomena; and that every situation is unpredictable in the details.
One of the things that depresses me most is the tendency to write off whole swathes of humanity by sticking a label on them and dismissing them. I sat on the train this week and two guys, a Scotsman and an American with a comb-over, spent the whole journey doing just that. Huge numbers of people were judged, given a label and dismissed.
Here’s an example “I work with medics. I know what they’re like. They’re only interested in one thing. Money.”
Here’s another “Everyone below the Mason-Dixon Line is an in-breeder”
Want more? No, I didn’t think you would.
So here’s a counter to all that. There is a beautiful piece of journalism in today’s Guardian about people with Down’s Syndrome. Read right down to the last paragraph – it’s the clincher! I meet people who says things like this every week. It never ceases to humble me.
And here’s another counter. Sugar Mouse in The Rain sent me a link to a video on youtube. (By the way, go see his blog. It’s lovely and he’s a lovely man) Here’s the video –
OK, so this is how the web works. I sat down at my iMac and typed “Jack Kerouac writing tips”. Not sure why that came to me right at this moment but it did. I started clicking through some of the finds and came across a lovely blog called “myinneredge” where I read a post about Kerouac which mentioned Natalie Goldberg and I thought “it’s ages since I read Writing Down the Bones. I really enjoyed it” so I followed the link to her site and found she had just completed a film about Bob Dylan – “Tangled up in Bob” – what a great title! Not just because my name is Bob and I love the “tangled up” idea…….
So that’s how the web works with hops, skips and jumps. And the thing is, there is NO endpoint. As I typed “tangled up” I heard a Genesis song in my head –
OK, so I’m prepared for the fact that you might be put off by the religious slant, or you might find it a bit cheesy, but, hey, I think there’s way too much cynicism in this world. (I DO enjoy satirical comedy but that’s not the same as cynicism)
So, go on, take a chance, go watch this little presentation. The photography is really beautiful. The poem “An Interview with God” (anonymous poet apparently), which provides the text of the presentation, I rather like, and the music, by the way, is from the Forrest Gump score. As a whole this is a very touching work (have your tissues ready), and, you know what? It made me feel good!
I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. I will not, however, tolerate abuse, rudeness or negativity, whether it is directed at me or other people. It has no place here. ANYONE making nasty comments will be banned.
Heroes Not Zombies 