Steven Colborne's Blog, page 13

Today’s Appointment

My appointment went surprisingly well, thanks be to God. I arrived on time and didn’t have to wait to see the consultant at all. We only spoke for about fifteen minutes, but she agreed to discharge me which is what I was hoping would happen.

Unfortunately, when I mentioned side effects this was pretty much ignored – it seems she either doesn’t care about them or felt my side effects aren’t serious enough to warrant intervention. I don’t agree, but I didn’t want to press the issue.

Some further good news is that she doesn’t want to discharge me under a community treatment order, which would have meant certain restrictions for around six months at least. Instead, I will be discharged back to my GP and I will get my repeat prescriptions from them moving forward.

The consultant forgot to order my medication so I’m currently in a cafe waiting for that to be delivered to the ward. It’s about a four hour wait but I don’t mind too much, it’s just a shame I have virtually no money as there’s not much to do to pass the time without spending money around here. (Maybe I’ll write a blog post!) I do have some of my book promo cards so I might give them out on the street, will see how God leads.

The fact that I was effectively discharged today is a real answer to prayer. Thanks again for your prayer support, it has been a huge help. I’m now going to focus on getting out of debt, it’s not a huge debt but I will need some time and good fortune in order to pay it off.

The Lord is most gracious and most merciful. Those fourteen weeks in hospital were certainly testing. But I got out alive, praise the Lord! And now, a new chapter

Life Update

Greetings, dear ones. I do hope you are feeling joyful today and are grounded in faith in the Most High God. This is really what matters, more than family and friends, more than work. Be mindful of God and strive to obey Him. This is surely wise.

Today was wonderful and also challenging for me. This morning, I made some updates to some of my books. I decided to change every mention of PerfectChaos.blog to PerfectChaos.org. I own both domain names and the .blog name simply points to the .org name. But this could be a little confusing for readers, and I hate confusion and love simplicity and clarity. It felt reassuring to have updated the books to make this improvement.

I’m struggling with the medication I am being forced to take. I spent a few hours lying in bed today and feeling unwell from the side effects. It’s not easy to put into words how the medication I’m taking makes me feel, but it is most unpleasant. I don’t think it makes any positive difference in my life at all. The only reason why I ended up in hospital was because of a very difficult accommodation situation and it’s not as though tablets and injections (I am being forced to take both) can help with that.

I am due to return to the hospital tomorrow afternoon for my discharge appointment. I am not feeling too enthusiastic about this. I find the consultant (who may be reading this, she told me she has visited the blog) very difficult to communicate with and understand. She is quite unpredictable, and unless I strive very hard to achieve clarity around what is discussed, I generally leave the appointments feeling confused, frustrated, and upset. This should not happen with a good doctor.

It’s important to point out that I don’t dislike the doctor. I don’t dislike anyone. But I do think she makes strange decisions and often speaks in a way that defies reason. I also worry she struggles with a lack of empathy and doesn’t understand (or doesn’t truly care) how distressing it can be on a psychiatric ward and having to take medication which does dreadful things to the body. If I mention side effects she is dismissive rather than compassionate. This is most upsetting.

It’s 7:30pm here in London as I type. For the last hour or so I have been listening to the Qur’an, which is why you might sense my tone is quite grounded. I cannot encapsulate in words how grateful to God I am that He led me to read the Qur’an. It is light and healing, an incredible mercy for humankind and for me personally. The Qur’an is the reason why I do not feel more distressed about having to go to the hospital tomorrow. I know that I can listen to or read the Qur’an and that will help me enormously, God willing.

I am mystified that more people don’t read my books. I think it’s partly due to a lack of interest in the subject matter, especially among people who are my ‘friends’ on Facebook. With people who read this blog, I cannot understand it. Maybe for some people, they feel the blog content is enough. It could also be that they perceive the books might not be interesting or valuable, I don’t know. Maybe I need to redesign some of the covers, though I can’t afford to do this. I will continue to do all I can to highlight the value of my books and it’s up to each individual and God whether or not they take an interest.

After watching an inspiring minimalism video on YouTube, I decided to have a ‘no spend’ month. I will only buy groceries and toiletries for one month and hopefully this will help me to get out of debt. It’s not easy to do this in the days of Amazon Prime, but it’s going pretty well so far. I am due to receive several payments but not until the end of the month. In the meantime, I am having to be really careful. I wish I had more money, to some extent for my own needs but also so I could be charitable with it. But God does whatever He will, He gives sparingly to whoever He will and abundantly to whoever He will. I am very grateful to God that He always provides for me abundantly.

On the subject of income, I am going to work hard to reach more people with my books and hopefully that will provide some income. I am also looking to do some proofreading, editing, and web editing (you can see this website I recently created for this purpose). Do let me know if you have a writing project and are looking for the kind of help I’m offering.

Friends, thank you for reading this article. I am going to return to listening to the Qur’an now and I have some food to eat later, thanks be to God. I would certainly appreciate your prayers for my trip to the hospital tomorrow for the discharge meeting. If I still have access to a device after the meeting, I will probably post an update tomorrow evening. God bless you and peace be with you.

Has the Internet Become Rubbish?

Greetings, friends! In today’s article, I’d like to briefly share a few thoughts related to how using the Internet has become quite painful for me. It will be interesting to see whether or not you share my feelings.

I should begin with a note of appreciation concerning how incredible the technology associated with the Internet has been. I have absolutely loved working with digital media, and the opportunities that the Internet has offered — and still offers to some extent — are truly wonderful. Heck, I couldn’t be writing this if it wasn’t for the Internet, so I am most grateful!

So why do I want to sell all my technology, grow a huge beard and move to a hut in the mountains?

Here are some of my concerns:

The ridiculous cookies nonsense. Every time we log on to a website we’re faced with those cookies popups, and having to go through the process of selecting how we want to be tracked. This is surely ridiculous.The lack of human involvement in major sites. When we use a website like PayPal, eBay, or Facebook, and something goes wrong, we have no way to do anything about it. We can’t pick up the phone and call someone, or even email someone, in most cases. This is most frustrating.The decline of social media. The early days of Facebook were truly special. But these days, social sites are flooding their platforms with new features and seemingly trying to squeeze money out of us at every opportunity. Facebook and Instagram have both become bloated and overly complicated, and Twitter is an abysmal experience — you can post quality content on a daily basis but it just dissolves into oblivion. The best you’re likely to get is some snarky hatred.The lack of privacy. We all know it, we’re being watched. Whatever we do is recorded is secret by government agencies and God only knows who else.

What prompted this article is not only several years of increasing frustration with using the Internet, but also a particular experience I’m having with eBay right now. I have been shut out of my account because I have a new phone number and in order to sign in to my account I need a code to be sent to my old phone number to verify it’s me. But I no longer have access to that number. And eBay is presenting me with no other options for signing in. Needless to say, their help pages are useless. So I simply cannot use their platform. This is incredibly frustrating.

I expect some of you can relate to at least some of these problems. They make me feel that the glory days of the Internet are behind us unless something major changes. All the present developments around blockchain and crypto are adding another layer of frustration, because it’s just making the experience of being online even more complicated. And it all seems to be about money, anyway.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

‘Business’ cards

Hello again folks! I’m hoping to go to the London Book Fair next week, although it’s dependent on whether I can acquire a free ticket. My finances are so stretched right now that this is the only way I’ll be able to go.

If I can get a ticket, I plan to potter around looking for people who are interested in philosophy and religion. If I can find any such people, I will give them one of these little promotional cards.

Much to my shame, I’ve never been to the London Book Fair… ever! It’s quite bizarre that I’ve never attended, I have certainly been very close to going on several occasions, and my father (a now retired editor) used to go every year.

I’m quite pleased with these little cards and even more pleased with the books they are advertising! If you only read two of my books, read these two, they are the best (in my view!).

Have you ever been to the London Book Fair? Please leave a comment and tell me what I should expect!

Did You Notice?

Our friends at WordPress have made some significant changes to the Reader. They’ve removed like, comment, share, and subscribe buttons from the main Reader feeds — you now only see these buttons when you click through to read an article.

I think this is an excellent thing. It will encourage less judging of an article based on the number of interactions it’s had and will encourage people to explore content more deeply rather than making snap decisions. It will also discourage mass liking (to coin a phrase) which is an aggressive promotional strategy which we’re no doubt better off without.

What do you think of the update? Do you agree it’s a good thing?

Further Thoughts on Book Reviews

Hi friends! In yesterday’s article, I questioned whether or not it would be wise for me to read reviews of my books on Amazon and other retailer websites. Nobody commented, but I did talk it through with a friend over the phone.

In the end I decided to leave it! I may change my mind at some point, but I felt that I wanted to keep the peace of mind I currently have surrounding my books and avoid any risk of emotional damage. I’ve got a feeling I might change my mind, but that’s the present situation. It makes me feel like a bit of wimp, but then again I wouldn’t jump under a train (hopefully), so I suppose self-preservation is a valid instinct!

On the subject of books, I have scheduled some promotions for my book The God Articles. This is my most popular book on Amazon in terms of highest star ratings. I have scheduled promotions with Book Cave, Bargain Booksy and The Fussy Librarian, and the book will be on offer for $1.99 for a few days, reduced from the usual $8.99. The book is already reduced to the discounted price on TealightBooks.com, so do avail yourself of this offer if you’re interested in reading the book.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

The God Articles is a 430+ page compilation of dialogues, discourses, prayers and poems written by philosopher Steven Colborne. Readers will find deeply personal articles portraying times of spiritual crisis, as well as vivid descriptions of pivotal moments in Colborne’s faith life such as water baptism, Holy Spirit baptism, and miraculous healing.

You can find the book here:

Tealight Books
Amazon
Google Play
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about the book, I’ll gladly answer them!

A Question

I think I’m quite a fragile individual. I go to great lengths to avoid negativity. I think that’s one of the reasons why I spend a lot of time alone; I just hate bad vibes and would rather avoid them.

Anyway, that is relevant to today’s post, in which I want to ask for your advice. Do you think it would be wise to read reviews of my books on Amazon and other retailer websites? I know that my books are quite controversial. I have enough trouble moderating the comments on this blog because what I write stirs up the passions of a lot of people. I suppose faith is a very personal and important matter, so people understandably get quite defensive at times (not least, me!).

I have never read reviews of my books on Amazon. I go to great lengths to avoid scrolling down the product pages in case my eyes latch onto something nasty. I don’t know why I’m so sensitive about it — I really believe in my books, and that should be enough, no? I just don’t want to suck in someone’s anger and negativity because it will make me feel depressed.

On the other hand, I do feel that if I read the reviews I might be able to benefit from some constructive criticism. And because of that, the idea of reading my reviews kind of excites me. But will it just feel similar to a visit to Facebook or Twitter these days? Utterly face-palm depressing?

On the whole, my books do get decent star ratings, although they polarise opinion quite starkly. I anticipate that there will be some angry one-star reviews in the mix. But maybe I’m being a big baby about it and I should just be brave, read the reviews, and be done with it.

What do you think?

An Interesting Idea

Hello, friends! Today’s post might not be of interest to everyone, so if it doesn’t give you butterflies in your tummy just hit the delete button — normal service will be resumed soon!

I’m a member of an author community on Facebook and someone in the group posted something quite interesting. They suggested fellow authors could advertise their books on their website with a link back to their website to buy. It would be a reciprocal thing.

I realise that I might not be making any sense, so let me put it another way.

If anyone reading this is an author writing philosophy or theology, I can add your book to my Books page with a link back to the book on your website if you do the same for me on your website.

If you’re interested, drop me an email to discuss further!

Happy Easter ✝️

Greetings, friends. Glory to God! He is the Most High, the Most Great. Wishing you all a very happy Easter whether you are marking the occasion or not. I haven’t personally attended a church service this year (for reasons that I won’t go into) but I’m about to do some Bible reading and will be reflecting on the resurrection and all it means for Christians.

I will just share a short Easter poem that I memorised a few years ago and which I think is rather beautiful. I’ll be back posting again tomorrow, God willing.

Tomb, thou shalt not hold him longer,

Death is strong, but life is stronger,

Stronger than the dark, the light,

Stronger than the wrong, the right.

Author unknown

As Promised…

Hello, friends! In my most recent post I shared my excitement in anticipation of watching the sun rise over my favourite park this morning. I said I would take a photo and share it here, so I’m being true to my word. The photo that accompanies this post is one I took this morning. However, the photo isn’t the best! Sorry. And it’s the moon in the photo, not the sun! Oops! You’ll just have to take my word for the fact that it was a wonderful morning and I really enjoyed watching the sunlight illuminate my surroundings and lift the temperature.

Today has been really enjoyable. I’ve purposefully stayed away from the flat and have been spending time in cafes and in the park. I came very close to booking an impromptu trip out of London this morning, but sadly my finances are too tight and so I decided to drop the idea. I’m not sure whether to stay out tonight or go back to the flat later, I’m just going to see how I feel. There hasn’t been any trouble as yet since I’ve been back, but I’m yet to cross paths with my neighbour so that could all change. I’m anticipating hostility, but you never know, I suppose.

I’m looking forward to getting some nice food in a while, and God only knows how the rest of the day will unfold. I expect I’ll be blogging tomorrow, so I’ll see you then. Have a great one!