Euan Semple's Blog, page 23

Trappings of success

A hair’s breadth away from trapped…

Oh , America…

The constitution once seemed like a benefit, it now seems like a burden.

That’s the trouble with rules. It is all too easy to lose sight of intuition and common sense in their application.

On the road again

We are off to Croatia in our campervan this evening and, as with my previous trip, I’m going to stay off social media for the duration.

I’ll probably still blog though, and am generally heading in that direction, so you can catch me here.

(If you want to be sure of staying in touch in the future use the RSS link or email form in the sidebar)

Stand there while I’m talking to you

Our brains are constantly telling stories about what has happened to us, what is happening to us, and what will happen to us.

They will do this in their own even when there is no one else there.

But it is oh so much better when there is someone with us. Our brains get to unleash their full narrative force, embellishing, projecting, really getting into their own made up stories.

Except for the odd confirmatory smile, or nod, or grunt, we don’t need much from those inflicted with our fantasies.

In fact the less the better.

The warm glow of talking to a database…

Guilt

The concepts of right and wrong, innocence and guilt, are ingrained in us. The idea of free will is deeply cherished.

But what if all of our actions are a result of our conditioning and the stories our brains have made up, without our active participation, about our previous experience? What if they are out of our control?

What if someone does something we consider profoundly unacceptable?

We have the right to remove ourselves and others from harm, but to plunge into the murky waters of sin and retribution leads to individual and collective madness.

To err is human

Sometimes other people can really hurt us.

But everything we all do is either an act of love or a cry for love.

Responding when faced with the latter is our biggest challenge.

We will frequently fail.

But forgiving ourselves and trying again is why we are here.

Selfishness

Doing what we should has such a strong hold on us that doing what we want feels like selfishness.

The moment to moment tussle between these two leaves us dazed and confused.

Getting back what we’ve lost.

It’s nice to be naive at times because everything you see is then wondrous and full of possibility.

This quote is from a post by Helen Blunden on why she is deleting her social media accounts. I am creeping ever closer to the same decision and for similar reasons.

When things don’t go our way

When the day that was meant to be sunny clouds over.

When the person we thought we could trust lets us down.

When The body we have taken for granted starts stopping.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the unfairness of it, the unreasonableness of life not turning out as we expected.

Such arrogance!