Daily Jots

“When you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.”Krishnamurti

I was interviewed for b5media not too long ago, and was asked the question, “If you could change the world in one significant way, what would it be?”
I would have people listen to each other. We all want the same things. Security, safety, good ways to raise our kids, love people all want those things but they are so unattainable because no one …read more

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“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”Elbert Hubbard

Information overload and original thinking.  I think we are all suffering from it.  It seems to be an evolutionary response to “there’s nothing new under the sun.”
It is getting harder and harder to come up with original ideas.  We see it all of time in Hollywood.  How many movies are remakes of old movies?  I don’t know the exact statistics, and I am afraid I don’t care enough to research it, but I know there …read more

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“While some have argued that extremes in sleep-wake timing are personality characteristics… we found that differences in a fundamental property of the circadian timing system, its intrinsic period, will determine whether someone is a ‘early bird’ who awakes before dawn or a ‘night owl’ who tends to stay up at night but sleeps in late.”Charles A. Czeisler, M.D. (Harvard Medical School)

Are you a night owl? I absolutely am. You can imagine me in the house at night; it may appear from the outside that everyone is asleep, but I am just starting to get going. Well, maybe …read more

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There are a lot of quotations books – good ones – but every now and then one comes along that is absolutely inspired. I found this book in, of all places, Walmart; I picked up a copy, and then another copy for a gift… well, I could have bought a dozen. It really is that good.
The book is titled, “Patches of Godlight,” and is “written” by Father Tim Kavanagh. I put the author’s name in quotes because the author is a character in the well loved “Mitford Series,” written by Jan Karon. All of the books …read more

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“Thinking Outside the Box means viewing reality as patterns locked in time based on the sceince and math thay create our reality. Our consciousness exists, in part, inside the box – the physical plane or frequency. Conscious awareness is evolving out of the box in the alchemy of time.” 
Ellie Crystal
This really has my mind preoccupied.  I have mulling it around a fair bit the past few days.  I decided – what the heck, I’ll do a web search on it.  Wow, a lot of people are trying to think outside of the box, or in some cases, trying to try.  It …read more

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It’s great when I get something to “worry” my mind over.  (Worry in this case means to mull around and think through – not stew over.)  And today, while cleaning out an ancient email folder, I found a link to an article that was definitely worth “worrying” over – especially since the phrase, “Thinking outside of the box,” is the subtitle of this blog.
“Out-of-Box, In-the-Box, New-Box, Other-Box, No-Box Thinking,” is an article written by Robert Allen Black, Ph.D.  He explores in this article what it means to think outside of the box and why that may, or may not, be …read more

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“I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.”
John Steinbeck

I spent yesterday writing about Hemingway – it was a whole thing about polydactyl cats and I mentioned my two polydactyls Hemingway and Steinbeck.  Hemingway has been quite full of himself today.  I think, he thinks, that I was writing about him and not the author.  (Don’t tell him – grumpy polydactyls are just not fun.)  But then I realized that Steinbeck, my jet black polydactyl was quite depressed.  He was virtually ignored.
Actually this is just …read more

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“One cat just leads to another.”
Ernest Hemingway

I am not a big fan of Ernest Hemingway’s work.  That has never been a secret.  I acknowledge that in literary terms he is a good writer – probably one of the best.  I respect the tenacity he had to make his writing as compact, meaningful, and perfect as possible.  He never wasted words; each word in a book propelled the story.  But I still don’t like the stories he told all that well.
But you know, you gotta like a guy who writes standing up, for self-discipline.  And you gotta like a guy who …read more

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“There’s a magic in the sense of longing.”From “The Haunted”
“The Haunted,” is one of those movies that is less than a blockbuster.  Aidan Quinn and Kate Beckinsale went on to stardom in spite of it, not because of it.  But it had a couple of redeeming points and this quote was one of them.
Longing is one of the most painful, yet delicious feelings that a person can experience.  It empties out a person completely and flows in like the tide, filling up the soul, like the seawater fills up the pockets in the sand.  Longing is all encompassing. …read more

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“People need trouble — a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.” William Faulkner
I thought I might be giving up my computer for Lent this year!  First it was those bookmarks, then it was some bad sectors on the hard drive – which of course, explains the bookmarks.  Anyway, it is fixed and I am back with hopefully a well-behaved computer! 
But it was very frustrating.  You know that feeling that computers can …read more

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