You Make Everything Better

Well, here I am waiting for a customer service call line to answer.

So plenty of time to write a blog. I’ll keep it short anyway. But clearly not out of necessity.

What we would like to say, when dealing with any issue as a customer, is to be able to say without reservation or sarcasm …

You Make Everything Better

Sadly that kind of customer service is very rare these days. No longer is the customer the one who should be come out of the experience feeling good. Now, more often than not, it seems to be that the customer …

-Must pay as much as we can get out of them.
- Must wait as long as we can keep them waiting.
-Must give us a score to tell us “how well we are doing”.
-Must be the one who stays calm and grateful
- Must be reminded, every few seconds in the midst of all this, that “your custom is important to us”.

It should go without saying that this is not the way forward.

This is making things worse.

So, um, let’s not be the one’s that do that, whenever we’re providing a service or a response.

Or a friendship.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

This Sunday song is just because. Absolutely beautiful cover. I’m sure you’ve heard this version by Israel Kamakawiwo’ele.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Perhaps the most sentimental song ever. Yet at the same time it says something incredibly truthful, beautiful and maybe even possible about us as humans. The frail, fragile dreamers that we are.

Have a restful, peaceful day.

It’s Not Gonna Change The World

Among the multitude of things to choose, the man chooses something to do. Something that motivates him. Something that he feels is important.

It isn’t much really, in the grand scheme of things.

The man lives in Guatemala. In that land there is a big trade in parrots. People like pets. And this particular kind of pet has a special skill. It can talk back at you. What’s not to like?

But the parrots in Guatemala, don’t get treated very well. When they are captured they are kept in atrocious conditions. It causes psychological damage. Yep, they suffer mentally.

So our man tries to raise awareness. And when he manages to rescue some of these parrots, he looks after them, he loves them, until they are ready to be freed back into the wild.

And as those parrot fly free again he says with quiet humility….

”It’s Not Gonna Change The World”.

And you can’t argue with that.

Row To Shore

Row To Shore brings back a memory of a me that doesn’t exist anymore. Just like all the former versions of me in fact.

The song began with a poem written by someone I “met” online called Kim Le Clair who is the song’s co-writer. That poem felt very personal even though I wasn’t the originator. And that version of me which I saw, still pops up occasionally in a loop of re-occurring memories, some of which can still bring a tear to my eye. In fact listening to the song had that effect just now.

The song is partly about not fighting our battles alone. Taking that step though … to find the “others”, the potential friends, or colleagues, or co-workers, or partners …. can be a battle in itself. Sometimes it’s easier to stay out there, alone on the ocean, living off our own resources. It’s a kind of hiding.

But I know how difficult it is to move in any direction when a certain sort of mindset develops.

So I try, when the opportunity arises, to wish good luck and give encouragement to those who find themselves in a similar place.

Because it’s not a permanent destination. It can and will change.

So row to shore.

See You On The Summit

See You On The Summit

It starts here.

But wanting, planning, aiming, dreaming, moving towards… being there.

I've been struggling with this tension a certain amount, since meditation and the art of “Now” and “This” has started to influence my life. Mainly in a very good way.

But every good thing brings with it new dilemmas.

Here is where I am. If can’t find contentment here, then I’m missing the point of life, because here is all I’ve got. Though even without lifting a finger, here will constantly change.

But where to aim for now? That’s what we humans do isn’t it?. We plan ahead. What really matters? What is my next summit?

Like you I get out of bed in the morning with things I have to do. The lack of having much real choice in that is its own kind of freedom. And if it doesn’t feel like that, then I’m trying to start to see it that way.

But when my obligations are fulfilled what then?

Well, something, that is all. Like you, I make it up as I go along. I do something. I don’t think it even matters what to be honest, as long as I am convinced that that something will make the world better for me and others. And that I always remain open along the way to be convinced otherwise.

But in the meantime I do something. Whatever it may be. And every step is a step in the direction of that particular summit. My particular summit, right this moment, is to finish today’s blog in a way that makes clear sense to me.

Well, I’ve reached that summit now. And if happens to make sense to you too, then that’s a bonus.

Because it’s often nicer to get there together.

What’s That About?

It’s the fourth of the month. Here’s the new one. And you may well ask ….

… What’s That About?

I’m a homo sapien
Got the chance to be happier
Than a frog
A fro-o-o-og

Don’t need to wait
Wait, sitting around
On a log like
A fro-o-o-og

She’s catching flies
While I’m feeling dow-ow-ow-own

What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba

I’m a homo sapien

Got the chance to be smarter
Than a dog
A do-o-o-og


Don’t need to wait
To be told what to do

By my boss

Like a do-o-a-og

He’s sniffing lampposts

While I’m dumbing dow-ow-ow-own

What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba

OhohOoh
I’m on the top of the world
Apparently I’m more evolved
Than you

Ohohooh
It seems absurd
That I’m the one
Who’s more confused- ooh ooh



So yeah
I’m a homo-sapien
Got the chance to 

Live cleaner than a hog
A ho-o-o-og

Don’t need to sink

To washing myself in the bog

Like a ho-o-o-og


She’s in the mud

While I play the clow-ow-own

What’s that about
What’s that about

Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba
What’s that about?
Dababada Badabada Badabadaba

What’s that about?

Holy Water

It’s in our blood. That part of us which is always looking for something. Mainly, in our long history, we were simply looking for the next meal. And to quench our thirst. But at some point along the way we started looking for a certain something that would fill a perceived hole in our soul.

Who knows where that perception came from. There are a lot of theories.
But that was the start of this thing we call “spirituality”.

Do we have a “hole in our soul”?

It doesn’t seem to matter. Whether we do or we don’t, we won’t stop looking now. That elusive Holy Water may or may not exist at the summit of some high mountain. Or in some other physical or mental place. But it always, in our belief systems, requires a great deal of effort to reach.

Yet at a certain point in life, we might just find ourselves wondering if all that effort in “getting there” might more wisely be spent in simply staying here. In …

… Being Still.

Which in theory shouldn’t require any effort at all.

But, ironically, that might be our hardest journey yet.

Most Of The Time

I recently watched the Biopic about Bob Dylan, “A Complete Unknown”. It was very good.

He’s a one. Somehow he managed to have learnt the art of being completely himself at a very young age. And he did so in the face of fame and near universal acclaim.

If you or I were worshipped, as Dylan was once worshipped in his early twenties, it would be very unlikely that we wouldn’t lean in, at least a little bit, and allow the adoration to wash over us. Who doesn’t want to be loved?

Dylan didn’t seem to need that. Wherever his followers wanted him to go…he set off, and continues to set off at the ripe old age of 83, in the opposite direction.

Wherever that Devil May Care comes from, it continues to be a quality I admire. Maybe Dylan took it too far. But “Not Caring” is sometime a good character trait to acquire.

It can certainly write some good songs.

Most songwriters can manage it some of the time. Mr Zimmerman still manages it Most Of The Time

The Lemon Yellow Curtains

“I metaphor I knew you”. Boom Tish.

But in other news …

… a good metaphor carries the weight. It tells the story in a way that makes us feel safe. We don’t have to immediately recognise ourselves in it. The more distant the better in some ways.

But perhaps … possibly … the metaphor, the right metaphor, has changed more lives than a thousand sessions of therapy ever could.

Because it enables us to see ourselves, as though it wasn’t us. While, secretly, we know it is us. And that can help us to work things out. To cry a bit. To think objectively. And to laugh at ourselves.

Whatever it takes.

I’m not saying that The Lemon Yellow Curtains is a good metaphor. But it’s definitely a metaphor. I think.

I think it’s a metaphor…

… for …

- a good teacher who matches our moods in order to win our trust. In order to help us get unstuck.

Or, otherwise, almost similarly, it could be a simile.

I’m easily confused in these simple matters. But hopefully you aren’t.

Big G

“And ain’t it the way of the world

To make things complicated.

Ain’t it the way of the world

To fake the news.

Ain’t it the way of the world

To sow confusion.

But hey

That’s  the same world 

That made you…Big G.”

Don’t Forget To Breathe

Long, deep relaxed.

That’s the first thing to go about our breathing when anxiety, or fear, or even a simple distraction, kicks in. Or when we’re out of shape.

Sometimes, and for some people all the time, breathing is a physical struggle. Possibly it’s the hardest, most frightening struggle we can have. The fight for air, when air isn’t coming easily.

But for all of us, as long as we have breath, we breathe.

It is perhaps because it is such an innate physical response to being alive, that breathing is often used as a focus of meditation … “just notice the breath”.

Similarly, for someone in a state of panic, a simple solution is holding a paper bag over the mouth, and focussing on the breathing.

Because, perhaps ironically, if we give our breathing a little bit of un-judgemental attention, it often leads to the breaths becoming a little bit deeper and more relaxed. And when that happens, we relax.

We can’t forget to breathe.

But, still …

Don’t Forget To Breathe.

Hiya Caya

Hiya Caya was written 18 months a go for, and about, a special little baby. And now she is already a little girl. She has travelled beyond the bounds of a mere song, beyond the limitations of a helpless infant.

She’s starting to make a splash. To affect the world. To influence it.

To change it.

But somethings will never change. Her smile will always take me higher. Because a simple smile will always be one of the best influencers for good on planet earth.

I’m going to smile today. And I’m going to try to raise a smile or two.

Cry Little Baby

“When there’s nothing you can do about it,
There’s nothing you can do about it.
Hey, it’s always been this way.

So Cry Little Baby … “

A baby can’t put any of it into words. When there is an absence of something needed, he simply cries.

We can never really put it into words.

And sometimes we also simply need to cry.

The Other Way Round

?go words the way which matter really it Does

or The Other Way Round

We often talk about getting a change of perspective. To freshen things up. It’s a nice idea.

But how big a change? And how do we get it?

There are hundreds of ways of course. Visit or live in a different country. Learn a new skill. Take psychedelic drugs. Stand on your head.

Perhaps the most accessible, but hardest one of all is to sit in a room with someone we completely disagree with, drop everything we think, and try to see it from their perspective.

Being married can sometimes provide the perfect opportunities. It’s very easy to overlook that one.

It doesn’t mean we have to change our mind of course, once we’ve managed to acquire a new perspective. But it’s becoming increasingly clear to me (and again I’m preaching to myself, the great unconverted) that to include and embrace the existence of paradoxical, sometimes contradictory thinking in our own perspectives, is probably one of the most important skills we can learn to develop in today’s world.

It’s a toughie though, I must admit.

nb. probably sensible not to wait to be understood before we learn to understand.

Get On Out Your Head

We asked our foster son, who is dyslexic, to try and write in his own words his reasons for applying for a social care course at college. This was to be part of his application form. The short piece he has written moved me to tears. You would understand if you knew about our history together. Or even without that knowledge perhaps.

Today’s song is Get On Out Your Head. Well perhaps one of the best ways of getting out our own heads, is to start thinking of other people. Here are the beautiful un-edited words that our boy wrote (with his permission).

”i want to make people feel safe and comfortable.

i also wanna be there for peopple if they dont have anyone else and try and have an impact on them.

i think i would be good at it to because i like talking to people

people need someone in their life even if its just a carer

i want people to look forward to seeing me

i want to make peoples life a little happeir”

Song To The Tick

Hmm. Song To The Tick has come up.

I was hoping it would be a song that was relevant to the big Storm Eowyn, passing through as I write. But life is only about serendipity and appropriateness by coincidence. Things happen in unexpected ways, and we try to put our meaning, a pattern, upon it all.

And, if we’re lucky, along the way we also learn to be flexible, adaptable, creative and … when the storms come … resilient.

Let todays songs remind you of a barefoot summer walk through the woods. But, even in seemingly idyllic circumstances, there might be a promiscuous, diseased tick lurking in the undergrowth.

And even in the midst of a storm, literal or relational, there can be peace.

Everything’s Just Fine

I saw two otters yesterday, just after sunrise, as I walked along the seafront. I think they were mother and child, but that’s the guess of an amateur nature lover.

Seeing otters is not a common sight, even in places like here, where they live and breed in reasonable numbers. And I could watch them for more than twenty minutes. We were heading in the same direction. I felt blessed.

Here’s a thing though. You get a far better view on tv. I was seeing them from distances of twenty metres and more. So only the dark outlines of animals swimming along in an otter like way … frequently diving and coming back up. One time I saw the flash of a small fish in a mouth.

Never mind TV close ups though. Even the idea of seeing otters, the one that might play out in our heads, can be more emphatic, seem more real, than the experience of actually seeing them.

But actually seeing them, just like the “idea” of seeing them, is still happening in our conscious minds. That’s where all the “live action”, as well as our imaginations, the TV pictures, and our memories of it all are occurring.

In fact it’s all live action to our conscious minds. And that action plays out without any input from us.

Knowing this has become helpful to me. Because the same is true about other sets of information. Like my anxieties about the world, any “real” experience of the things I have anxiety about, and the TV pictures about worrying things happening in distance lands.

It’s all right here, playing out in this exact way only for me, and only on the canvas of my own consciousness. It’s all revealing itself afresh. And it all will pass.

And Everything’s Just Fine

All Aboard

Once we’re on the boat we’re committed.

Well, we ARE on the boat. We’re All Aboard.

This …THIS … is the journey we all share. We share it all because of our ancestry.

Because of our humanity.

It seems odd that we would even contemplate trying to get one up on our fellow travellers. Because we are all on the one small ship, on the one big ocean.

But we do. I tried to this morning with my wife. I (loudly!) tried to be the one who’s point of view was …

-better

- truer

- wiser

Trying to be the one who won.

And then I reflect on the fact that we’re travelling on the same ship, in the same destination, with the same ticket.

This is OUR journey.

Not mine.

Dancing Feet

“This hope is like a fountain
It won’t stop springing up
It won’t shut up now
And now my heart is bouncing
It’s that dancer inside of me

Oooh, Oooh, Oooooh
I’m alive
And gravity is losing its grip now
Oooh, Oooh, Oooooh
I survived
I’m going on a different trip now

Dancing Feet
I’ve got dancing feet
Ain’t gonna miss a beat
With these dancing feet
See my dancing feet
These feet won’t lie

So everytime the world starts dragging you down 

An’ you wanna move to another town

Listen to your feet
They’re saying
Don’t quit now 

Stand up, don’t sit down

Coz You’re a dancer
Don’t ask why

When you’re a dancer
You’re gonna fly
Your dancefloor is the sky

These feet won’t lie”

True story!

The Road To Fun

Today, The Road To Fun is taking me home.

Potentially though, it can head in any damn direction we like.