After a week in which I seem to have been exposed to, and discovering I have been exposed to misleading statements for auite a while by quite a few people, I think the weekend theme should be
Thursday thoughts
Watching three friends of mine all battling with circumstances that leave them drained and in emotional pain makes me wonder about the source of the pain.
In each case they seem to be looking for affirmation of themselves from someone who seems not to care, or in one case, to actively dislike them.
How or why do we give others such power over our self-image that without their approval we feel unworthy, sad or similar negative emotions?
I think if we could find out how to prevent this we’d have the answer to so much unhappiness.
BUT then – would we also be removing some of life’s happiness?
Wednesday’s words
Do you enjoy the very bright youngsters? Yesterday afternoon I again spent some time with one of ours. He’s ranked something silly in IQ against the others at Mensa.
What I do find interesting is that he has a few ‘quirks’. (Why do I think the intelligent ones shouldn’t also be human?)
He doesn’t like to do anything where he can’t do it well, or extremely well – that’s his preference. I realised it’s probably because he’s not accustomed to failing, being more accustomed to doing best of all around him.
He doesn’t like cats. I suspect they are too unpredictable.
For some reason he and I just clicked when we met. I feel like a doting aunt, chatting and enjoying watching him. We met by chance yesterday as we were there for different reasons, but had fun with the chat, discussing a model he is building for a new customer project, where I’m the one in the company who has the most experience of the customer so I could add some useful stuff for the discussion.
Over the hour I realised just how thirsty I must have been, I polished off an iced tea, glass of water and then a latte, and still when I got home had another glass of water. He had – HORLICKS. In warm weather in the daytime.
Wow! If I’d done that I’d have been asleep under the table in two minutes.
I think I should get some for those nights I can’t sleep.
Sidey in a quandary
What does using the social media mean to you? I’ve been wondering about this for a while now.
Every so often on Facebook I have unfriended someone whose statuses are always aggressive or nasty. I see others who announce they are having a tidy-out there. So far no-one I like seems to have unfriended me, so maybe I’m not guilty of bad behavior.
Personally I believe online contact does reflect one’s nature. If you are open and friendly that should come through, if you are nasty that will eventually show, if you are a troubled soul, that will show. There are those who maintain a “pose” or a “false front” for various reasons. We are all aware of those who pretend, pedophiles in particular who pretend to be youngsters to gain access via online contact.
On a South African blog site we have seen some truly nasty trolls. Some of whom obviously persuade themselves that they are right to follow a path of evicting others from the platform by making their lives miserable until they leave.
I was horrified to watch a couple split up and he started telling lies about her online, apparently fueled by a family member. No surprises – I removed him as a Facebook friend, just as I would have avoided him in the real world.
I have realized I get very fed up with people who post cryptic statements apparently hoping for people to ask what it’s all about. When they do it a lot, I turn off their status updates on Facebook, or stop visiting their sites. If they can’t be open then they mustn’t expect me to play their games.
But now I am faced with someone I like in real life whose online behavior has become a problem. Online posts vary from describing an idyllic life to somewhat cryptic posts indicating a serious problem. The latter get many people upset and worried, but which are later described by the person as something quite different. The problem is partly that others seem to think I will know what is going on and involve me in trying to unravel events.
There are real problems in this person’s life, so there is always the risk that if these cries for help are ignored that something dreadful will happen. But how often can someone apparently cry wolf before people start to ignore it?
It is not in my nature to play these games, so I sit with a quandary. Do I start to avoid the person? Do I confront them with their behavior and tell them I will be ignoring these dramatic posts? Or what do I do?
Monday Morning
Monday, woken during the night by gently falling rain and some distant thunder. I hate waking when I can’t go back to sleep, it makes the whole day feel foggy.
Yesterday we spent outdoors, first sitting round under the trees, just chatting and eating some snacky stuff for starters, then around the table for a long and chatty lunch. The weather was lovely warm without feeling too hot. After the previous week, I suppose I should have been suspicious, cooling down before the rain can only mean Autumn’s long fingers are beginning to sneak into the picture.
I do like Spring and Autumn, not too hot and not too cold, but they seem to go past so very fast. I think my mental seasonal boundaries may be somewhat mixed up as they should each be 3 months.
My first…
I had a day of two firsts, one that left me with a lifelong love, the other was later a giggle inspired by an advertisement.
A lovely warm Saturday, somewhere back in the early 1970’s I met some friends at an open air restaurant at the Carlton Centre. (The pride and joy of Johannesburg back then. We had never had a building like it. Just building the underground levels took a few years and people used to go and peep through special holes in the surrounding wall to see this huge hole and its subsequent lining and creating the foundation for a tall office block, shops, hotel etc.)
There we had a delightful lunch and I had my first Campari. Of course back then a Campari sounded exotic and sophisticated. I enjoyed it, but have to admit it hasn’t become a lifelong love.
Many years later there was a popular advertisement in South Africa asking about where you had your first Campari – hence the giggle – because the place given in the ad was not exactly sophisticated – more of a beer locale really.
After lunch we drove out east to the largest airport near the city. Jan Smuts. (Why do they name airports after political figures?)
The purpose? To see the Concorde doing her altitude landing and take-off testing. Johannesburg being conveniently high and (back then) one of the few cities at altitudes with an airport with a reasonable control tower and not too busy on a Saturday was a great place for the testing.
We sat on the car at the airport fence – in those days not too far from the runway, and watched as she came past, sometimes landing, sometimes touching the ground with her wheels and then speeding up, practicing an emergency.
My first Concorde!
And I sat, mesmerised and falling in love with that beautiful white needle of a plane. That love for a miracle so far ahead of its time, functionally beautiful, and able to do things little else could do back then has stayed with me for ever.
Thursday Musings
Chatting to someone yesterday while we both waited for Chinese takeaway, was pleasant enough. While in that drowsy state between awake and asleep the conversation wandered back into my head.
A young actor, reading a book on mime, wanting to refresh or improve his grasp of the medium. We got chatting about what techniques are used to get a message across to someone. He said something I think he meant to be profound, yet I took a somewhat lighter meaning from it.
He said that for something to exist, its opposite must exist first. One of those lovely circular discussions that can eat up happy (usually alcohol assisted) hours.
Yet it struck me that he was right in an odd way. For something to surprise you or make you laugh, the opposite needed to be present in your mind. The surprise is when you are presented with that which is opposite to what you had in mind.
So with that in my head I’m off to face the day. See who I can surprise.
Valentines day special
Valentine’s day. The day of love, commitment and caring, all wrapped up in schmaltzy cards and enforced buying of perfume, chocolate etc.
This year to celebrate it I have rounded up people’s contributions to extend the little rhyme “Roses are red, violets are blue” which is supposedly finished off with some very sweet statement. So here’s what some bloggers came up with
| 68ghia Roses are red Violets are blue. You cracked open my head So I took someone else instead
|
Inzwakazi Roses are red Violets are blue. Colours might change Its global warming
|
| Side vieWRoses are Red
Violets are blue Bananas are yella I need a new fella (maybe its you?) |
The happy huggerRose are red Violets are blue I can’t think of anything that rhymes Now I don’t know what to do
|
| Nancy HatchRoses are red Violets are a winner Shut that cock up Or we’ll cook him for dinner!
|
The AsianRoses are red Violets are blue Sugar is lumpy And so are you |
| HedgieRoses are red Violets are blue My heart goes boom boom When I think of you |
MS MomRoses are red Violets are blue I’ve done the Valentine’s Challenge How about you? |
| KragenhaiRoses are reddish Violets are Blueish. If it wasn’t for Christmas, We’d all be Jewish. |
68ghiaRoses are red Violets are blue Frankenstein’s ugly but WTF happened to you!! |
| Nancy Hatch Roses are red Violets are blue You’re schizophrenic And you are too!
|
Another Day Rose’s are large Violet’s are small, Whatever their size Yours are best of all. |
| Tin Dog Roses are red Violets are blue I’d rather be single than be with you |
Valentine’s Challenge
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Sugar is sweet
And so are you
We’ve all heard it a million times. And we have all seen many, many variations of this.
A challenge for you all
Write another one and leave it as a message, I’ll put them all together from the 24 sites as well as wordpress so we can have a bumper valentine edition of them all.
