Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 91

Nothing is but thinking makes it so.

Hamlet may have been reaching for some certainty when he said this line, but it still can guide us. Everything we think in response to an event is a construction that we are placing on that event or feeling. And it might be wrong.

If I feel I will die if I don't buy a new car, then my thinking has made that so - not reality. If I feel my life is an empty failure then I'm presuming I can know the totality of effects that result from my life, which is arrogant, to say the least.

Yet, I can also c...

Love

There are many things worth remembering, and one of these is that love can only come into a place of stillness within us. It cannot make itself felt in turmoil, because confusion is all we can feel at such times.

If you want love in your life you may have to practice stillness.

Anyone for cricket? A Metaphor.

Every so often I read the British cricket reports, since it is the national game of my erstwhile homeland. This season's matches against South Africa have shown an England side that has had some success, but is at the moment chiefly praised for its tendency to hang on, white knuckled, and force a draw in matches that looked as if they were going to collapse in defeat.

The British have been moved, relieved, and divided on this.

One camp snorts derisively at these failures to win, and calls a d...

A Lost Joseph Conrad story…. wrestling with the past.

Today I thought I'd post a few comments on a rather abstruse subject - Joseph Conrad's story 'The Sisters'. I choose it because it's fairly clear that Conrad was using his story to explore some rather murky personal territory.

So murky was it that, in the end, he abandoned the tale. It was published as a fragment two years after his death.

It's not much more than a fragment, really, but the edition that is prefaced by F. M. Ford is valuable because Ford was present when Conrad was first...

America the Insular

The USA is remarkably large. And because of that it is sometimes remarkably deaf to what the rest of the world is up to.

Reading the Guardian.co.uk today I noticed that the British government has just implemented a scheme to replace inefficient gas boilers in many homes, and has done so complete with subsidies. Further down the page is an article about how local agencies are making more land available for the uk's gardeners to grow more of their own vegetables, thus lessening a dependence...

The New Year

It's the traditional greeting - Happy New Year! And very lovely it is too.

Yet it does demand we take it seriously. We tend to say 'I hope you have a Happy New Year' which seems to suggest that happiness comes from elsewhere and may, or may not, alight upon you this year if only your luck is good.

I'm the last person to disparage luck, believe me, and yet I'm also aware that the greeting could more usefully be heard as a directive: Make Sure You Allow Happiness into Your Year. It asks us to...

You Don't Have to be Einstein….

I was watching the TV the other night and happened upon a program about Einstein. I can't say I understood all of the physics, but I did take away a few things.

The first is that he never doubted he was doing important work. Even when he was working as a patent office clerk, grade 3, he knew he was going to do something worthwhile. He kept the faith.

The second was that his working day would include long spells of looking out of the window, puffing on his pipe. We now know that he was...

Yoga and more

I've just got word of my good friend Laura's new site, and now I have website envy all over again.  Anyway, it's a delicious site, one that explores the intersection of Yoga and Higher Education 

http://yogainhighereducation.blogspot...

And I can think of several people I know in Higher Education could could really use a little yoga…..

Blessings on you, Laura, for all you do and all you will do.

Gloves, an Memoir

In our household some articles are common property, as I suspect is the case in many homes. Warm hats, scarves, gloves - all are there on a first-come first-grab basis, and no one seems to mind as long as one doesn't look too ridiculous in the aftermath.

This was not the case when I was a boy, where each of us was expected to know exactly where his or her articles or warm clothing were, and be responsible for them, and if yours went missing you were doomed to do without.

So, I was out...

Memoir

At times it seems almost anachronistic to be writing about memoir on a website.  After all, memoir is triggered by some very subtle cues - like seeing one's father's handwriting on an old letter, before he got too old to write clearly.  That's something I'm never likely to get from an archived email.

Of course, there are advantages.  I can pull up videos of friends and relatives and in the future these may be a treasure trove of insights, wisdom, and opportunities to reflect.

And then there...