This is when despair ends; Now This is when hope begins; Now

There may be things in life that we can afford

to lose,

but faith, hope and trust are not such things.

(Citizen Z)

 

-What's the point? We are not going to get any answers, my son says.

He is right of course, unless....unless a miracle takes place.

But I need to say something comforting, uplifting, encouraging,

because that's what parents do. 

As my son is getting out of the car at the hospital entrance

I tell him: ''I will have hope for the both of us.''

Without looking back he disappears into the hospital.

I park the car, grab a bottle of water and then head for

the elevators. 

Though I feel as if I have entered a maze, I eventually find 

my son sitting in a chair at the orthopedic specialist's reception.

A mere shadow of himself, skinny, gaunt and encircled with an

almost visible cloud of despair and sadness.

My job as a parent is to never, ever, give up on my son.

To never lose faith, hope and trust.

I sit down next to him and start flicking through a

magazine. 

I need to say something positive, something

uplifting, my mind tells me but experience has taught

me that saying stuff like that usually only tend to make

my son angry, so, I say nothing.

A few minutes later the orthopedic specialist does a little

prodding and questioning  and then eventually says ''sorry, I

really wish I could help, but whatever ails you is outside my

scope''.

In silence we walk back to the car. Each of us dealing

internally with yet another disappointment.

Only when we are in the car on the way home my son

finally speaks and says: I told you this was gonna happen.

I have no hope left.

I know I have to say something so I tell him that I still

have hope and will not give up.

Giving up is not an option for me.

As we pull up at home our cat Lovecraft is waiting

at the front door. 

My son feeds the cat, I turn on the kettle and make myself 

a cup of coffee.

Yet another fruitless excursion is over.

Sipping my coffee and thinking about how many times

we have ventured out to numerous appointments and meetings

with doctors, specialists, etc. etc. nursing waning tingles of

hope and faith only to have them crushed, I can't help

but wonder......where is that light at the end of the tunnel?

And yet.....

maybe.....?

Hope, although it may at times feel as if it is about to desert us,

is still always available to us.

Hope, as far as I can ascertain is a choice.

Despair says: it's not possible.

Hope says: why not?

Despair says: it's useless.

Hope says: it's not.

Despair says: hope's an illusion.

Hope says: hope's a solution.

Despair says: change is impossible.

Hope says: all things are possible.

Despair says: life is suffering.

Hope says: life is discovering.

Despair says: life is loneliness.

Hope says: life is boundless.

Despair says: hope is wishful thinking.

Hope says: despair is hopelessness thinking.

Despair says: there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

Hope says: there is always light, albeit ever so subtle.

This is when despair ends; Now.

This is when hope begins; Now.

about the image: acrylic on large canvas

Title: ''The burden of faith''

This painting is painted with a cloth only and no brushes

and is part of a series of black and white paintings

with a message.

Time to get pretzely.......

Everyday I play scrabble on line and I

do this because I read somewhere that the brain, 

much like other muscles, needs exercise.

To challenge myself and to increase my vocabulary,

I have decided that each game I play I must use at least 

one word I have never used before.

Yesterday one of my ''new'' words was pretzel.

However, it was not accepted.

This was strange to me as the ''computer expert'' had

 played it just last week.

I mean, pretzel is just the word for a type of bread

isn't it?

Mind you, I once had a friend say to me ''I'll have to turn

myself into a pretzel to get into your car''(At that time I was driving 

a low to the ground, two-door sporty little number.).

From that comment I concluded, well, more assumed perhaps,

 that pretzel can also mean to ''be very flexible''.

As the beginning of a new year is just a few hours away,

I have a feeling that in order to be able to keep up 

and cope with the many twists and turns that life may 

toss my way, I may have to turn myself into a ''pretzel''.

To be flexible is to be able to ''bend without breaking''

some say, and to me that sounds very much like 

becoming ''pretze-ly.

According to some: ''Psychological flexibility is the

ability to distance oneself from one's current mindset

and consider other possible mindsets.''

So, being very pretzely.....

Mindset is the established attitudes, opinions, views,

perspectives, etc. etc. we all have about...... well,

....... most things.

Although, commonly we don't experience our ''mindsets'',

to us ''it's just the way things/people/politics/etc. etc. are''.

A helpful way to ascertain whether we are ''set in our ways''

or flexible is to challenge or mindsets by asking ourselves

a simple question now and then: ''But what if.......?''

But what if there is another way, perspective, possibility, solution,

way to think about it, do it, view it, etc. etc.?

(Sometimes ''negative'' rather than ''positive'' what if's 

show up..... what if: I fail, make a mistake, trip, fall, etc. etc.

May I suggest that those what if's are best met with a stern

''what if I don't''....fall, slip, trip, fail, etc. etc.)

Us humans like routines, habits, and patterns.

It feels comfortable, easy and ''safe'' and any kind

of challenge to those (routines, habits, and patterns)

 often feels uncomfortable, complicated and uncertain.

However, even the smallest of changes can alter our perspectives.

For instance: ''what if today I try a short black instead

of a flat white coffee?'' and hey presto, suddenly we may discover

ourselves facing the world ''wearing roller skates rather than shoes''.

What if today I ..........insert here something that you usually

don't do.....................?

Some say that when we are psychologically flexible we

become better at making choices and decisions based on

our core values rather than our emotions.

So how does one become more psychologically flexible?

Some suggestions: developing an open mindset,

trying new things, challenging one's opinions/views,

seeking out new experiences, learning a new language,

doing things differently, being open to finding alternative solutions,

 etc. etc.

If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get

what we've always got.

''Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked,

while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with

the wind.''

(Bruce Lee)

''Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the

face of confusion. All of these attributes are choices

not talents, and all of them are available to you.''

(Seth Codin)

Time to get pretzely methinks.

And, oh, by the way, Happy New Year to

everyone.

about the image: graphite sketch on paper and

edited in Elements

Although the ballet dancer in the image is not

pretzely I reckon the position demands a lot of flexibility.

Being in the Zone...........huh?.

This bird goes by the name ''Talgoxe'' in Swedish and

''Great Tit'' in English.

It's not a rare bird, it's ''song'' is not particularly

beautiful, it's quite small and can be found almost everywhere.

(Scandinavia, Europe, West, Central and North Africa, etc.)

When it comes to being able to adjust to changes in it's 

environment, this little bird(12-14cm)however, is doing so 

particularly successfully.

Though the image of this little bird may not be ''special'' or rare,

what is special about it to me is, that this is the first ''painting''

that I have managed to create not by using brushes, pens,

paper, canvas or paints, but by using digital technology.

Some years ago I bought a small Wacom Tablet determined

to embrace a new way(for me) of creating images.

After I had installed the tablet and all the necessary software 

I realized that I had no clue as how to use it.

I made a few feeble attempts but it just didn't feel ''right''.

Slapping paints on a fresh, white canvas or cardboard

feels so tangible, so physical, so invigorating and so

''freeing'' ......whereas moving a ''fake'' pen on a

little black plastic pad while staring at a screen just

felt artificial and impersonal.

I decided that I would learn the basics of how

to use the tablet for photo editing 

purposes and left it at that.

Until a few days ago.

Intending to paint a Red breasted Wren, I googled the net

 for some images to use as a reference. 

While doing so I suddenly thought: why not paint a Swedish bird?

I typed in Talgoxe in the search bar and found a nice

photo of one that I thought would work well as a

reference.

Using a pencil and a sketchpad I made a sketch

of the little bird. Happy with the sketch I grabbed

my water colour pencils, some brushes, a glass of fresh 

water and some proper water colour paper.

Then another a new thought.

What if I just scan in the sketch and then do the ''painting''

on the tablet?

A few minutes later I was staring at the sketch in Photoshop

Elements.

Okay, I thought, where do I begin?

Well, I need a brush and I need some colour.

Although the ''fake'' black pen felt strange in my hand,

I choose a ''wet media brush'', a colour and then began to ''paint''.

Much to my surprise I suddenly seemed to somehow

know how to use pen as if it was a real brush.

How was this possible?

I mean, I really had no idea what I was doing.

Then it dawned on me that I had once again stepped in to

 the ''Zone'',  I was in a state of flow.

Before I read a book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

called ''Flow'' I had never heard of ''being in the Zone'',

so when I read his definition of it: ''the essence of flow

is the removal of the interference of the thinking mind''

it suddenly made sense to me how time and place

always seemed to disappear when I was in the throws of 

creating ''stuff''.

Some define being in the zone/flow as: 

''a mental state of focused concentration

on the performance of an activity in which one dissociates

from distracting or irrelevant aspects of one's environment''.

 Painting the little bird there was no thinking,

only doing. 

 As the image more and more

started to look like the reference photo I realized

just how much fun I was having doing the ''doing''.

(Not only fun, but I also found it quite exciting.

 Only when my hand holding the ''pen/brush'' started to ache

did I notice how much time had passed.)

 I can't say that I remember exactly how or what I did

when I painted the little bird because more often than not,

when I do creative stuff I tend to lose myself in the

process, aka being in the zone/state of flow.

However, be that as it may, entering into it usually

begins with letting go of expectations and ''having a go''.

- Your computer crashed? my son asked.

- Yes, I've lost all my photos and my software, I answered.

- So, paint instead, he said.

-Paint? I don't know how to paint.

- Do it anyway, he said and with those words a new chapter

in my life began.

''Do it anyway'' opened my mind to a much larger

world, a world full of possibilities.

Wanna dance but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Wanna sing but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Wanna .....insert here what you want to do.........

but don't know how?

Do it anyway.

Throw open the gates of possibilities.

About the images: Boy dancer- ink on brown paper

Gates- photo

As a man thinks, so he is...........

Have you ever found yourself thinking: ''There's just too

much noise(going on) for me to think clearly. I've got to go

somewhere where I can focus my thinking.''

According to those ''in the know'' we make thousands of

decisions every day. Most of those decisions we make

unconsciously and can be categorized as habits.

Most of us get up about the same time, eat the same breakfast,

have the same hot drink, check our phones, emails, messages,

and the same media and social platforms.

According to some stats many of us sleep with our phones

next to us and when awake check our phones every six minutes 

without being aware of doing so.

(Some research suggests that only 10% of the decisions we make

every day are made consciously.)

Habits, once we have developed them, can be difficult to break.

According to Ann Graybiel, (professor at MIT) there's a part in the 

brain(basal ganglia)that assists us in developing habits so that

 they become automatic. This frees up space in our brains and

 memories so that we can take in all the other things 

we deal with every day.

Which is good, yes?

 Well, yes, if they are ''good'' (as in healthy/life-affirming)

habits...however, it does the same with ''bad''/unhealthy habits.

Habits can easily turn in to addictions, obsessions, and

mental health issues. ''Thinking'' our way out of such habits can

be very difficult which is why it is in my view a good idea to

scrutinize our habits now and then and ponder whether they are

 of benefit or detriment to our well-being.

''As a man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think,

so he remains.'' (James Allen)

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Thien Buddhist monk,

in one of his books writes about how we often do things

so automatically that even when we are eating or

drinking something hot, we don't actually taste it.

Mea culpa.

(I was actually drinking a coffee when I read that

and I was not really tasting it.)

Reading those wise words of Thich Nhat Hanh, I realized

just how much of my life was experienced on

automatic pilot.

And.....It didn't apply only to tasting, it applied just as much to

doing, feeling, and thinking.

When I got up in the morning, was I aware of my thoughts?

When I put my clothes on, did I feel the fabric on my skin?

When I ate my toast, did I actually taste it?

When I washed up my plate and cup, was I aware of doing it?

Nah, is the honest answer.

It became abundantly clear to me that I needed to get off

my automatic pilot and to start making sure that wherever

I was,.....I was there.

What about you?

When you had breakfast this morning, can you remember

tasting it?

If you woke up this morning feeling a bit ''down'', can you

remember what your thoughts were before you became 

aware of feeling a bit down?

Emotions/feelings, so some say, are our bodies response to

our thinking whether we are aware of it or not.

(Our belief systems and unconscious thoughts are on autopilot

a lot of the time which is why at times we may be

puzzled by our emotional responses.)

''In the egoic state, your sense of self, 

your identity, 

 is derived from your thinking mind 

- in other words,

 what your mind tells you

 about yourself:

the storyline about you, the memories,

 the expectations,

all the thoughts that goes through 

your head continuously

and all the emotions that 

reflect those thoughts.

All those things that make 

up your sense of self.''

(Eckhart Tolle)

It can be hard to think sometimes.

We do live in a noisy world.

But thinking about stuff is important.

Often we make ''better'' decisions

when we spend some in-depth thinking

before we act.

Whether we do our best thinking while

on the commode or on the beach,

the crux is - thinking about....

thinking.

about the image: ink on paper

Title: ''Rodin, what are you thinking about?''

Dealing with ''storms......

 Suddenly a storm hit.

The sky turned white with lightning, roaring winds shook the

trees and violent rain pounded the windows.

Lovecraft, the cat, screeched and vanished upstairs and

I turned off everything electrical.

Suddenly the phone rang and made me jump out of my skin.

I ignored it remembering being told as a child never to 

speak on the phone during storms.

(Some say it's silly to be scared of a bit of bad weather, but

having witnessed two balls of lightning and a telephone

(not a mobile)blow up....let's say I have a healthy respect

for ''bad weather''.)

Crash! Bang! Dead branches hit the deck.

Looking out at my deck to see if the branches had smashed

my outdoor glass table I noticed that my table umbrella

was about to take off.

''Not this time you're not'' I said to myself and ran out

to save my umbrella. The wind was so strong I could barely

fold it but I was determined to not let a storm steal another

umbrella from me.

Safely back indoors my son told me I needed to take him to

the ER again. Storm on the outside and ''storm'' inside of me.

My son was distraught, anxious, scared and in a lot of pain.

I dropped him off at the ER and with my heart

thumping and my mind racing I drove back home.

When I opened the front door I was greeted by the cat who

insisted on being feed...Again!

Food? The mere thought of it made me feel nauseous

and the smell of the cat food did little to settle my stomach.

Eek. I opted for strong coffee and a cigarette.

When the bad weather had finally dissipated I turned on the

TV and distracted myself by watching the FIFA World Cup.

But my mind kept racing.

Would my son finally get some help?

 Would they take him seriously or just treat him with 

contempt and hand him some painkillers and send him

home?

Was there something else I could be doing to help him?

Calm. I needed to stay calm. I needed to push away

 feelings of despair and helplessness that were

threatening to eat me up.

''Whatever the outcome, you can deal with it'' I told myself.

Having spent hours upon hours worrying about my son's

well being I have discovered that doing stuff, (but mostly

sorting or cleaning) seems to give me a sense of control.

So while I was waiting to hear from my son I decided

to sweep the deck, clean out the fridge, vacuum the floor,

and tidy the books.

''I may not be able to control what happens at the ER, 

but I can control how clean and tidy my place is''

was my thinking.

Two hours later I picked up my son who was

ropable as once again the Healthcare system had let him down.

As we arrived home I took a very deep breath and prepared

myself for yet another ''storm''.

In a lifetime most of us go through a number of

different ''storms''.

We may be able to somewhat predict and prepare 

for storms but usually we can't control them.

Storms are a part of life, right?

But what are we supposed to do when they don't

seem to pass?

''Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.....

it's about learning to dance in the rain.''

(Vivien Greene)

As an avid reader I have come across a lot of

awesome ''one-liners'', sayings, and aphorisms.

I used to think little of the usefulness of

such until I read a book in which I came across

the term ''self-talk''.

Apparently we all engage in self-talk and the 

book suggested that there are three different types of

self-talk: Positive, Negative and Instructional.

Example: There's a storm coming.

Negative self-talk: Oh no, not another bloody storm.

What damage is it going to do this time!

Positive self-talk: Alright, there's another storm coming.

Well, I've been through storms before and I will

get through this one too.

Instructional self-talk: There's another storm coming.

Okay, let's batten down the hatches and stay alert.

Self-talk is that inner dialogue we all have

with ourselves and it is reflective of our beliefs,

and biases, ... although we may not be aware of it.

(In psychology it is called Internal Dialogue)

Personally, once I became aware of my self-talk I realized

just how much of it was negative and critical.

So I decided to change it.

Beginning by: becoming aware of it, questioning it,

and reframing it.(Change it)

And, importantly, exclude as many ''absolutes''

as possible. Exchanging: everybody>some people,

 everything>something, always>sometimes,

too hard>challenging, impossible>tricky,

etc. etc. etc.

Another storm? Bring it on...

''we only have to deal with todays ''storms''

because tomorrow's storms are not yet here.''

(Citizen Z)

about the image: oil pastels on cardboard

and some editing in Photoshop

Title:

''Every storm runs out of rain just like

every dark night turns into day.''

(Gary Allan Running)

Can time really fly?..........

Time is one of those things that does not exist as an

 independent entity.

Rather, it is merely an ''instrument'' that we use to measure

the spatial position of objects relative to each other.

Time, perhaps we could say, exists as a cognitive instrument for 

measuring change.

The thing with time is that we use the term as if it ''real'',

something tangible, but is it?

Many of us may think of time in terms of clock faces, almanacs,

 calendars, the movement of the sun and the moon etc.

but here's the thing: time has no physical properties.

But, regardless of how we define time, for human 

beings,..... time matters.

Irrespective of how we measure time, on this planet

we call earth, it seems almost everything has a beginning

and an end. Although, sometimes the ''end'' may be more

of a transformation from one entity to another.

Take butterflies for instance. They go through four

metamorphic stages: from egg to lava to pupa to adult.

Once they become winged butterflies, in human terms

they usually live for two to three weeks.

Science says that everything alive will eventually die,

that we cannot have life without death.

Uncomfortable as that truth may be, is there not also

something beautiful in it? Life becoming ever so precious 

 because it will not last forever...?

Even us humans go through metamorphic stages:

from embryo to (if we are fortunate enough) to senior

citizens.

Each stage we experience lasts for a certain amount of time

and affects how we experience our bodies and minds.

And as time passes, how we spend it, and who we spend

 it with, for many of us tend to become more and more

important.

Time, as far as we know, only moves in a forward direction.

Except, for in our minds.

Our minds(another intangible human construct) may I

suggest, can be viewed as ''time machines''.

With our minds we can ''travel'' back in time with the help

of memories, we can travel into the future with the

help of our imagination, or we can use our minds

to help us to be firmly fixed on the present.

Although we can shift from the past to the future in a

split second, we can only ever live in the present.

And the present, shifts from the present to the past

in a millisecond because, as science has established,

what we call ''time'' always moves forward.

Although time always moves forward it can be experienced

in a number of different ways:

''time flies, time stands still, we can be ahead of time, 

behind time, we can experience

bad times, good times, uncertain times.

We can live on borrowed time, we can calculate

estimated time, we can be wasting time, saving time,

 killing time, etc. etc. etc.''

How we experience the passing of time often has a lot to do 

with what we are doing.

Having a root canal ->slow,   having fun ->fast,

waiting for a teenager to come home -> super slow,

having a relaxing massage ->super fast,   waiting for

the bus, train, tram etc. -> slow,   watching a good movie

->fast..........and so on.

Perhaps ascribing an assortment of qualities and other

 attributes to time may be a feeble

 attempt on our behalf in order to make time seem more

 ''real'', more tangible because, us humans methinks,

 do not like uncertainty or the ''unknown''.

We can worry about the future but not the past.

We can have regrets about the past but not the future.

We can't rewrite the past nor know what will happen 

in the future, we can only control what we will do right now.

If we are stuck between the past and what may

be in the future, the present moment will be lost.

For well being and good health I believe a good

thing to do is to set our ''time machines''

to NOW as often as possible.

''Know the true value of time; snatch, seize and

enjoy every moment of it.

No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never

put off till tomorrow what you can do today.''

(Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield)

about the image: acrylic on large canvas

''I think I'm just gonna sit now''

Peace, please.........

  

''Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,

a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence,

confidence, and justice.''

(Baruch Spinoza)

More than anything else, most of us humans want to be ''right''.

We often don't deal well with being told that we are ''wrong''.

-Wrong you say?! 

-Yeah, you're wrong!!!

-No, I'm not! I'm right and you're wrong!!

-Yeah, well if that's the case, prove it!

-I will. I'll prove it!

These days it can be hard to prove anything.

Photos can be edited, recordings whether they be

audio or video can be edited, and facts can be viewed

as ''alternative''.

-That's not a fact, that's an opinion!

-What's the source of that information?

Words are ambiguous.

 In my view, often mere approximations

since whatever words we use our words are filtered

through our individual biases.

Biases can be quite insidious and often we are not

even aware of having them.

When we decide whether we deem something to be

true or false, right or wrong, our decision making is

influenced by a number of cognitive biases.

For instance:

We tend to say that others did something because of

their character or personality, whereas we often attribute

our own actions to circumstances or happenstance.

(Actor-observer bias)

What we learn early in life often has a bigger impact

on how we judge events and experiences than we do later

in life. (Anchoring bias)

We often tend to focus our attention on information

that we agree with and disregard other kinds of information.

(Attentional bias)

We seek out information that confirms what we already

think and believe. (Confirmation bias)

We blame outside forces when things go wrong,

and take the credit when things go right.

(Self-serving bias)

And so on. There's a lot more..........

The thing is...cognitive biases affect most of our decision making

processes and how we view/judge events and experiences. 

To be a human as far as I can ascertain, is to be biased.

 But more often than not we are unaware of our

biases .......as in for us ''that's the way it is, it's the truth,

the only way to see it.....etc.''

If us ''worker bees'' get into arguments, disputes, clash or

get into conflict over different issues....well, that's

just ''life''..... but what happens when the powerful, 

the 1%'ers, and those who govern our countries do?

Nothing good. 

War happens.

Massacres happens.

Innocent lives getting extinguished happens.

Cities, towns and villages turned into rubble happens.

The social and economic fabric of countries

becoming disrupted leaving communities and

families devastated happens.

Whatever the reason, be it religious, economical, 

political or ideological.....war... in my view is never

the answer.

Peace is. Mediation and arbitration is.

Those in power sitting down at a conference table

and addressing their contentious issues is.

Diplomacy and peaceful problem solving is.

''Peace is a daily, weekly, monthly process,

gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old

barriers, quietly building new structures.''

(John F. Kennedy)

''War is only a cowardly escape from the

problems of peace.''

(Thomas Mann)

''A peaceful heart seeks a peaceful life.

Peace begins in each of our hearts.''

(Citizen Z)

about the image: ink and coloured pencils on paper.

Title: ''Peace, please.''