This is the third Christmas time I have written as Wonderersheart, and I am wishing a Happy Merry to all. I also want to acknowledge that the Christmas and holiday time will be a confronting time for many.
Punishing more than merry is how it can be.
The astounding Terry Gilliam of the Monty Python team created this greeting in 1968, capturing some of the perversity of the season, while bringing joy to the world.
I hope all is calm if not bright. Happy merry.
It’s the time of year for reflection and dreaming, where have I been and where to next? The latter is more intriguing, the where to question holds possibilities. What next? What does the next year hold for me? What might turn up?
My 2012 desk calendar, a gift from a friend, sits on my desk ready to flip to the first new month. The calendar maps out weeks and days within each month and I find myself wanting to hold on to moments as being most valuable. I want to grasp the hard to describe fleeting seconds that are often nothing more than smiles and looks, moments where I feel met by another. Wordless and brief but meaningful encounters, usually unaccompanied by a soundtrack or by a greater narrative script. Words when they follow those instances take me further away from contact on dreaming level and back to a more mundane association. I’ll clutch at moments of connection with another and each moment caught will be savoured for the brief instance it’s present.
I not wishing for surprises, big events or particularly significant achievements but for many transient insights and I’m hoping to make tiny contributions or connections to those I encounter, at least as many as I receive.
Life is too long not to be appreciated moment to moment.
All I want for Christmas is to be present.
As I walked home from the shops today, I looked at the clouds being herded across the sky by the wind while my thoughts were roaming free-range across my mind’s sky.
I was thinking about normal, how I define normal, how I perceive normal. I don’t imagine I am entirely alone in my thoughts, I am sure others would think them too but, as I strolled along the street, I was lost in my head unaware of anyone else in the world.
Normal resists definition, it is a flimsy sort of subjective concept. When I think of normal as standard, average, expected, or even usual, it is not something I particularly want to be identified as. Normal is a label I don’t much care for and I suspect it is a measure over-valued by society.
I remember in my childhood there was a need avoid incurring the disapproval of the neighbours. My family didn’t want to be noticed for the unusual and creative individuals we were, rather we wanted to pass as normal, like any other household in our suburban street. Occasionally one parent or the other query something out loud asking, “What would the neighbours think?” The neighbours, even the ones we didn’t like, were vested with extraordinary powers as the arbiters of what might be deemed normal. My family and I were reluctant to be noticed as the highly unusual beings we could be.
There was a, probably unrealised, fear of being noticed as different, we didn’t want to regarded with amazement, however amazing we might have been. Was it ridicule that was the threat lurking in the judgement of our neighbours?
Today I strolled along my own street with my head in the clouds, thinking about how delightful it is to have the freedom to be regarded as highly unusual. Highly unusual, I was musing on the phrase and enjoying playing with the syllables. The rhythm of high-ly un-us-u-al made me smile as I tinkered with the emphasis and started to trifle with the possibility of being highly unusual, it was an exceptionally pleasant musing.
It wasn’t until an adolescent walking towards me came within hearing range that I realised my singsong solo was being spoken aloud – Oh dear! I was caught out acting highly unusual.
Oh well, it was good to be caught out doing something peculiar rather than passed by while being a more prosaic normal. Today I didn’t feel ridiculous…
de·frag [dee-frag]
verb (used with object) de·fragged, de·frag·ging. Computers, Informal .
defragment.
I get fragmented over time, that’s how I feel when I’m not as connected to the everyday as I could be. Fragmented. Relaxing is not something I am good at doing. I tend to maintain a level of busy that means I jump from one task to another always thinking about things that need to be done. My head is busy juggling a mental to-do list and I am continually adding to the schedule so there is never an all finished or all done state. As the working week progresses I start to feel discimbobulated, more like a collection of remnants than a composed whole. That’s when I try to defrag: read, sleep, bathe.
I’ll employ any process, procedure, or method that relaxes, anything so that I can sleep solid – at my frantic busiest that sleep becomes less and less solid the more fragged and shredded I get, the affect is cumulative.
Recently my lap-top had a breakdown, its hard drive filled up and things stopped working, it couldn’t connect to any networks – some sort of software corruption or something. I was away from home and being off-line made me very anxious. I got very tetchy. There was little I could do but in desperation I started diskeeper to defrag the troubled disk, hoping it would help. Diskeeper ran for a very long time before reporting that “Fragmentation is the least of your problems…” I had to look twice, it was a message from the universe and it made me think…
The more I feel like a defrag is necessary, the more fragged I feel and the less contiguous and whole I become, it’s a downward spiral and that’s when I need to remember that fragmentation is the least of my problems. What’s needed is find a space to slow down, to sit and value what I have achieved rather then what I haven’t done yet. That’s when I need to negotiate with my parts and priorities and give myself space for my dreams – that’s the essence of defragging.
I am delighted to have just discovered Prahran Mission’s fabulous cafe plonk in the middle of serious coffee drinking territory, in Chapel St. I was seeking a coffee when I ventured into the Mission Cafe, and I am doubly delighted by the quality of their food, the appetising salads in particular.
I’m also enamoured with Prahran Mission’s participation ethos:
“Prahran Mission has always valued, promoted and practiced participation in an attempt to design and implement services that are accessible and responsive to the needs of participants. The philosophy behind this practice is based upon a belief that participants’ knowledge and experience of the mental health system means that they have an enormous amount of expertise in knowing what is most beneficial to the recovery process.”
Apart from seriously good coffee the Mission cafe provides training and employment to people with social and functional limitations related to mental illness. In my book there is no better cause than supporting individuals to develop their innate strengths and abilities.
Now I am on a mission to support Prahran Mission’s good work by frequenting my new found favourite cafe. The food, the atmosphere, and the staff are all well above average cafe standard. I think of the Mission’s work as a form of social sustainability that should not be undervalued – can not be overvalued.
…and the coffee? I mentioned it and I need to say again that the coffee is superb.
Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the greatest presidents of the USA.
In an odd sort of synchronicty Abraham Lincoln has been popping up in my life, and linking what I generally regard as my disparate, or almost mutually exclusive, interests.
Thomas Friedman spoke the Melbourne Town Hall last week. We don’t have many NY Times correspondents coming through town so I was keen to attend his lecture. He was inspirational and thought provoking. Of the many ideas and opinions he shared, one that particularly intrigued me was that the best of America is “hidden in plain sight”. Friedman was explaining that the 20th century as the “century of America” and that we shouldn’t assume another nation will be the country of the the 21st century. There could be another century of America
I listened closely to hear what has made America great, what it is that is hidden in plain sight… He listed many great things about America that other countries can’t copy and reproduce: the Constitution, the Washington Monument, the Declaration of Independence, the Lincoln Memorial, and more. I could understand some of the greatness underscoring the American psyche while listening to Thomas Friedman on a Friday night in Melbourne.
By contrast, I caught part of the Letterman show during the week, and David Letterman made a joke about the Lincoln Memorial, with Abraham Lincoln stripped back to his underwear. Letterman was joking about necessary government cut-backs after the US debt ceiling resolution. Only I didn’t think it was very funny, something very prim in me was triggered while see President Lincoln’s memorial mocked.
That was Thomas Friedman’s point, in part. The freedom of speech enjoyed in America, is part of the greatness, anyone can poke fun at anyone. Freedom of speech is a part of what makes America great. Freedom of expression and freedom of association, there is freedom to make your own choices.
My recent links with Lincoln – with no pun intended – are Thomas Freidman’s lecture and David Letterman’s Show. In my conflict facilitation work, as well, Abraham Lincoln is something of a role model for leveraging diversity of opinion and views. He didn’t just argue with his political rivals he took them into cabinet and held them close, valuing their differing views – my hero!
I have a current film link with Abraham Lincoln too, as The Conspirator just opened here and one of my fellow FilmDudes enjoyed the movie.
As different parts of me and my differing interests intersect around Abraham Lincoln, I have to mention that he is also a hero of this site, this wonderersheart part of me. Abraham Lincoln was subjected to periods of profound depression throughout his life. He is often quoted for his understanding of the condition:“Remember in the depth and even the agony of despondency, that very shortly you are to feel well again.” or “A tendency to melancholy…. let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.” he said.
I have quoted his amazing admission of suicidal thoughts previously in another post “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
Abraham Lincoln has been cropping up a lot around me and I hope he crops up more. I deeply admire the President who established universities, built rail roads, signed the Emancipation Proclamation during a Civil War, all the while as his own internal war raged.
Freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom to disagree, and equality for all appear to me as pillars President Lincoln stood proudly atop. They’re principles that are sometimes overlooked in the mental health system, concepts it is good to be reminded of.
“Why are there so many songs about rainbows?” sings Kermit.
I don’t know, but I am glad there are songs about rainbows, sung by frogs.
I have heard a lot about the Icarus Project and finally looked them up today.
The Icarus Project is a mental health movement characterized by the view that many phenomena commonly labeled as mental illness should actually be regarded as “dangerous gifts”. The name is derived from the Icarus mythology and is metaphorically used to convey that these experiences can lead to “potential[ly] flying dangerously close to the sun.” Wikipedia
Describing depression is not easy when you’re in it and that’s not necessarily why depression is misunderstood and misjudged. It might be a part of the silence. I don’t know. Here are lots of little descriptions posted on the Icarus Centre’s site by many people describing their depression in 20 words or less.
Depression in 20 words or less written to publish here by someone who knows what they’re talking about and who can place you right inside their experience:
A low slow slide down a glacier, only to fall off the face into the freezing water way below.
Driving at night out in the country towards a town, headlights out, and can’t find the switch, trusting the road is straight.
I am starting to know it – that dark morose ‘it’ we label as depression.
A while ago I wrote about Dan Savage and Terry Miller and their message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, “Whatever you’re experiencing now, be it family rejection, bullying and harassment in schools or even thoughts of suicide, it gets better.”
It Gets Better is an initiative to encourage vulnerable kids to hang on through adversity. regarding suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary crisis. I am reminded that difference is better when accepted and embraced, rather than marginalised. The message is as important to all of us who want to make the world a warmer more accepting place as it is to those who are made to feel they don’t fit in. A friend passed on a fabulous African saying: ‘If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.’ I am sharing just in case there’s any doubt that each of us can make a difference.
If you know you are different you can use that information and be more different. There is no competition, the best you can be is your unique and individual self.
This funky contribution to the campaign celebrates difference:
I’m an avid reader of horoscopes, keen to know the future will be well. I unashamedly ♥ astrology, dependable and curious Taurean that I am. I read all of the predictions, daily, weekly and the year ahead. I can’t resist a horoscope, they make me smile.
David MacCandless created one horoscope, a meta-horoscope, for everyone everyday from the most often used words in 4000 star sign predictions.
“Ready? Sure? Whatever the situation or secret moment enjoy everything a lot. Feel able to absolutely care. Expect nothing else. Keep making love. Family and friends matter. The world is life fun and energy. Maybe hard. Or easy. Taking exactly enough is best. Help and talk to others. Change your mind and a better mood comes along….”
It’s good advice and I will keep reading my daily horoscope, I won’t be able to help myself, I love the colour of the future. Horoscopes paint me positive, I see stars.