Unforgettable

A morning workshop with David Thomas, a red-headed ex-fireman from Halifax who has dramatised his competence - memory - by learning and reciting Pi to 22,500 places without a mistake.

An ordinary-looking man with a sly sense of humour and a mastery of memory techniques that he quickly taught the group. While we were memorising a list of 20 items in four minutes, he memorised a deck of 52 cards!

Highly recommended. (Oprah like him too)

Us and Them

Sometimes, just very occasionally, it hits home just how amazing it is that individual human beings manage to communicate with each other at all, let alone pretty constantly. After all each of us assembles our own version of "reality" inside the light-proof box of our skull, picking and choosing from the deluge of information supplied by our sensory organs.

I remember finishing a 5x4 day course, when 120 or so people were asked to take paper and crayons and draw a representation of their experience. We had all sat in the same room those 20 days, heard the same things, gone out for lunch and drinks together, and yet looking round the 120 visuals hung on the wall, no two were even similar. All were different. And that was just 120 people.

The fact is, every other human being out there is "Them" and Us is really just "Me". If I'm going to kid myself that "Us" includes my family, my friends, my colleagues or my countrymen, then I may as well keep that "Us" boundary flexible and recognise that it's down to me who I regard as "Us".

Beauty in depth

Sometimes you just get lucky. Take yesterday.

I was surfing round some of my favourite online haunts when I stumbled onto an article in Luminous Lanscape called Taking Your Photography To The Next Level. Part 1

Original and stunningly aesthetic photos along with thoughts and words that both made sense and inspired. There are two more articles on the same subject by the same author, George Barr. He talks about assessing where you're at technically and aesthetically.

I went to bed thinking about his images and thoughts, I woke up thinking about them and I reckon I'll be thinking about them for a long time to come.

Jump here to his gallery

In support of Alan Johnston

He's the BBC's reporter in Gaza who was abducted in Gaza on 12 March.



You can pick up an Alan Johnston button here >>>>>

Urrrgggh - it's technolust

Most years I go through at least three or four spells of lusting after a piece of hardware or software - marvels of technology that will of course transform my life.

Sometimes the lust goes away without being consummated because my attention has locked onto something else. Sometimes the lust just keeps on and on until I do something about it and actually buy the piece of kit. And sometimes I even use it after I've bought it!!

The latest object of desire was one of these here>> but as so often happened, one thing led to another and now it's one of these here >>>

Maybe it's the boys' toys thing. Maybe it comes from being brought up in the heyday of science fiction and James Bond. Maybe it's just distracting myself with mindless consumerism. Whatever - maybe I should just let myself enjoy it.

Living with art - digging a little deeper

On the subject of "vivir con arte" Profesor Grahasta wrote (see Spanish below) that for the Greeks to consider something a work of art, it had to have order, balance, contrast, unity and harmony. But that maybe these five elements represent the expression of the aspirations that we all have in our lives.

It's a good start, but a little Apollonian for my taste. It's missing a little bit of the Dionyssian, the flamenco, the edge of daring, the leap in the dark.

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El "arte de vivir" es una expresión extraña. Los griegos fueron los primeros que elaboraron la teoría del arte. Buscando las razones y las reglas de esas inspiradas creaciones humanas, llegaron a la conclusión de que había cinco elementos que debían hallarse siempre, para que algo fuese considerado "una obra de arte": orden, equilibrio, contraste, unidad y armonía. Pero... ¿Sólo en las obras de arte se encuentra esta excelsa combinación?

Quizás, estos cinco elementos representen la expresión de las aspiraciones que todos tenemos para nuestras vidas.

Leaning about vs. Learning how

In my 53rd year, which I reckon to be halfway through my life (touch wood), I find myself in a frenzy of learning how to do new things, aka "skills-based learning". So much of life is weighed down with receiving information (=knowing about), it's refreshing and invigorating to put learning into action. And it's very satisfying to go from learning how to knowing how.

The local university (Bath) has a "Division for Lifelong Learning" offering a great range of courses for all-comers; I learn Digital Imaging (e.g. Photoshop) there on a Monday evening and from the Internet which is stuffed with interactive courses teaching Photoshop. The University also has a fantastic sports department, so Tuesday evenings it's tennis lessons with other "mature" learners. And just up the hill we're very lucky to have a performing. recording harpsichordist who also giives weeks piano lessons to five-thumb klutzes such as myself. And in several locations round the country, the London College of Clinical Hypnosis delivers accredited courses in one of my favourite subjects - I attend the London courses one weekend a month.

For anyone of any age interested in learning "how", this a fantastic time in history.

Addictions

I reckon many people have addictions to a greater or lesser extent. By addiction, I mean repeatedly doing something against one's better judgment - usually because of the feelings that come with it, or the feelings that are masked by it.

I've recently half-broken an addiction to the action serial "24". Having had series 3, 4 and now 5 on DVD has made it possible to get to the end of one "hour" and go straight into the next "hour" - to get the next "fix", as it were. It's been instructive to recognize the "next fix" craving and push it away.

I have been a computer game addict (sad, eh?) and I broke that one by uninstalling the games and binning the software. I also have an online forum addiction that waxes and wanes. Currently it's waning.

From what I can see, it's also possible to be addicted to certain feelings, which results in behaviour that delivers those feelings. Angerrrrrr. Outrage!!! Moral superiority. Self-elevation. Being right. Winning. Titillation.

All of which inclines me to believe that many of the things that many of us do are ultimately means of creating certain feelings that we want to have. Goals (conscious or unconscious) are often the means to get the feeling. I guess the trick is not to think that one can't have the feeling without reaching the goal.

Visual creativity

Is it possible to develop visual creativity or is it something some people are just born with? Even at age 7 or so my daughter was already way better than me at drawing, painting and collaging. Now at age 12 she could be my teacher.

I'm creative enough with concepts and words, but visual is a weak area for me. So I'm wondering whether I can stir things up inside and develop greater visual creativity, just for the hell of it. And I'm wondering whether my hypnotherapy learning will enable me to mobilise something latent in my unconscious. Stranger things have happened.

It's a beautiful life

A couple of lifetimes ago a lovely young woman in Granada, Spain, introduced me to the idea of "Vivir con arte" - literally, to live with art. I don't know what the exact translation is, but for me the spirit of those words was about the presence of beauty and creativity and ingenuity and zing in life.