Pen vs Paper and States of Mind.

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Pen vs Paper

I find it so much easier to think and/or let my thoughts flow when using a pen and paper! I like to think of myself as fairly computer-literate, I touch type a fair number of words a minute, yet words/ideas/thoughts never seem to flow quite as easily via the keyboard as via the pen.

I wonder how many other people are the same? Is it an age-related thing? Is it something that you can get over?  Is it something that one should want to get over?

I also find art programs don’t suit me either – nothing replaces the feel of pencil/pen/brush on paper for art or the materials being used. Digital art is not for me.

Luddite? Me? I don’t think so.  I mean, I can use computers to create certain kinds of things without first writing them down or planning them out, but there are other things I like to do with words that just don’t seem to work smoothly or easily with a keyboard as compared to a pen.  The prime example of this being the ‘stream of consciousness’ writing that appears in my journal, that helps me sort though an issue, a problem, perhaps through connecting with the subconscious (unconscious?) level of the mind.  Somehow, this  just doesn’t flow quite the same way when I use a keyboard.

My preference for pen and paper when I journal my thoughts is likely to make it an ‘interesting’ challenge for me to keep a blog!

States of Mind

Yesterday I spent a while meandering through the tangled paths of the weird world web looking for reputable information on the conscious, unconscious, subconscious and super-conscious states of mind.

Naturally some of the paths led to fluffy-bunny inhabited places, but more led to places of what seemed like erudite learning, with good references to back up their information.

It seems that the ‘subconscious’ does not exist, not psychologically speaking; it is a term mostly used by New Age aficionados.  The super-conscious seems to be another term bandied around by the same community.

Of course, the term ‘subconscious’ has entered into everyday usage, especially when we grope for a memory or do/say something without thinking, or remember something we didn’t think we’d taken notice of.

It’s all something I need to find out more about, read up on the psychology, try to find my way through all the New-Agey type stuff and see what seems to make sense, and, despite what hard science and total cynics say, and reach a conclusion that sits well with myself. Which isn’t easy as I’m a bit of an odd mix between scientist, artist, creative person and a spiritual person too!

I know science doesn’t have the answers for everything, that it is only one way of viewing how the Universe works, that there are things about the Universe we can’t put into test-tubes or analytical machines and measure or prove scientifically, especially consciousness.

I like to keep an open mind, question claims that are made and experiences I have had, and certainly read what is written with not just a pinch of salt but a huge sack-full of the stuff!  I like to see references to published work, and in those published works other references, especially when, say, someone claims that their book is about Anglo-Saxon beliefs yet they don’t even reference a single academic source!

I certainly like the idea of, and believe there are, mysteries that science can’t fully explain.  It seems like each time science makes a step forward to understanding life, the universe and everything (see the BBC’s h2g2 site or BBC’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or even Douglas Adams for my favourite answer to this eternal question), then it uncovers something else that can’t be understood yet. I wonder if it is like peeling back the layers of an infinite number of onions, each with an infinite number of layers!  And of course those are just the scientific onions, there’s the philosophical ones, the spiritual ones, and no doubt many others too.

I wonder if science and spirituality will ever converge…

What is wyrd?

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Tom Graves – Wyrdsmiths
The Way of Wyrd – Brian Bates
Wyrd in Wikipedia

No, it’s not a cute way of spelling weird, not in my case. Wyrd, as a concept, has been with me a long while … most of my life in fact … before I had a name for it.

What is the point?

Angela PorterLeave a comment

First post, and what to say…

The most burning issue on my mind is what is the point of being here, on the Earth, alive?  Everything seems such a struggle, there are so many hurdles and obstacles, problems and issues.  We’re surrounded by hate and violence and disrespect and seemingly endless desire to rape the planet of its resources and poison the environment we live in, or the environments of those far away who we’ll never know.   We’re each judged by how big/small/fat/thin we are, what we have or don’t have, what we do or don’t do, by the colour of our skin/hair/clothing, by our abilities/disabilities by our beliefs, by where we live.  Children, animals, old people, young people, middle-aged people are abused in all senses of the word for all kinds of spurious reasons.  Have we progressed at all as humankind?  Have we?  Or has all the progress that has been made just been to increase the damage done, to do it all more efficiently and on a bigger scale and more creatively?

Why?  What is the point of it all?  Is there a purpose to life?  Do we need a purpose?

There are oases of peace, quiet, tranquillity, harmony, love but they are few and far between.  Materialism seems to rule all, and even creeps in even to these oases.

I don’t expect answers, I don’t know if there are any, I doubt there are, perhaps there are as many answers as there are souls incarnate on this hunk of rock orbiting the star called Sol, and perhaps may more for all those souls who have ever experienced this existence, and for those yet to come.

And yes, I’m feeling very low today … I woke in the middle of the night feeling very tearful and upset and questioning all of this…and more…why I struggle to undo the lessons learned from the past, the views I have of myself, the way I value (or don’t value) myself when I just seem to get nowhere from my point of view, though others tell me that I have changed, the same but different, the same but greatly improved.  But still I wonder what it is all about, why.

***

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.  ~Albert Einstein, in The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929

In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.  ~Charlie Brown

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.  ~Nancy Willard, quoted in The Meaning of Life, compiled by Hugh S. Moorhead

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.  ~Mark Twain

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.  You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.  ~Albert Camus

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.  ~Joseph Campbell

There is no wealth but life.  ~John Ruskin

The philosophy of mine earth can be summed up as this:  Sunshine creates happiness, and I create myself.  Nights are long and life is predominantly good.  Wind is refreshing.  Tea is wisdom.  Do the best you can, and be good to yourself so that you can above all be good to others.  ~Jessi Lane Adams

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.  ~Havelock Ellis

But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.  ~Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.  ~Phillips Brook

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.  ~Thomas Merton