List 30 things that make you happy.
When I first saw this prompt I thought I might skip it because I think of lists as good when you are going shopping or planning for Christmas, but otherwise far too superficial for something like this.
Then I realised that the answer was to point you towards this blog and the many posts contained within it. So, here are links to 30 of my favourite posts. Also, at the top of the page is a link to another 11 so that makes 41 in total! If you have read this far, please choose at least one and give it a go. My aim is for at least one person to read each of these posts. Nothing would make me happier today!
Posts to Read
10 Songs That Changed Me Song 1
Back in the Land of the Hearing
The A to Z of My Singles Collection Part 1
Revisiting Christmas 1974 Re-Play
Reflections of an ageing gig goer! 2
The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers
The Wonder Years Season 1 Re-View
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Re-view
Re-Play Melody Original Soundtrack
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
What Are You Doing Here? by Baroness Floella Benjamin
Re-Play 24 Original Hits by The Drifters
Four decades on … my (brief) RAF career
The Nutcracker from the English National Ballet Coliseum, London January 2, 2024 Review
Some Like It Cold by Elle McNicoll
The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk
The ‘A Girl’ trilogy by Jessica Taylor-Bearman Book Reviews
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov (Translation by Angela Rodel)
Describe one habit that brings you joy.
I am going to perhaps surprise a few people on here with my reflection on the central premise of this prompt. It is in its own small way emblematic of the way that our language has been steadily reduced in effectiveness and meaning over the last couple of decades. George Orwell saw this in 1948 when he reversed the digits of the year and created the dystopia of 1984. If you control the language you control the people.
Joy is derived from the Latin word rejoice, and in current parlance means a feeling of great happiness or pleasure. How can something you do every day be a source of joy if either of the previous two definitions are our starting point? A habit can bring, contentment, it can bring a feeling of security, it can bring quiet pleasure, but it cannot bring a feeling of joy. Our language has become a diet of extremes. We are told that everything is the best, the worst, the most important, the most amazing, unlike anything else. It’s exhausting! We need to get back to the days where simplicity and subtlety were valued, where people carried on quiet contented lives that fulfilled their needs. Instead, we are told to seek emotional highs at all times and not be satisfied with a level headed approach to life. I am just as susceptible to this emotional arms race as everyone else, pouring over social media, news, apps etc looking for my next hit of dopamine. By constantly chasing those extremes we are far more controllable by those in power who can manipulate us with joy, anger, fear and hope, all of the cheapened emotions to which we are prey.
So, take comfort in your habits, take pleasure in them, but do not try to take joy. Be happy with moderation and ignore those trying to tell you to reach for the extremes.
What are you curious about?
I am curious about the future. Isn’t everyone? It’s a bit of a dull answer on the surface, but bear with me.
For the last few years, probably since the pandemic, I have been looking no further than the next week or so. Maybe some of you know the feeling. You are so caught up with the rat race that pretty much all you can do is look to the weekend and hope you can get a decent rest. I stopped being curious about anything other than my payslip at the end of the month. All the interests I had before just dropped away and just surviving until the next break was the focus.
Then, I decided to resign from my job and finish full time year round teaching. Almost immediately I became enthusiastic about projects that had been mothballed, education that had been forgotten about and places I had never visited but always wanted to. My curiosity about what I was capable of returned, after a few years of being employed in a job where no one in management cared what I was capable of and I was so tired that I stopped caring.
I have a new lease of life and for however long I can I will keep my curiosity for the future.
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
Another tricky one today until I decided to flick through my memory bank. When I was in the Cub Scouts in the early to mid 70s we had a week called Bob a Job. The phrase came from the slang for a shilling which was a ‘bob’ of which there were 20 in a pound. As Cub Scouts we would go to people’s houses in uniform, knock on the door and say, ‘Bob a job?’ and, if they had a job they wanted doing they would pay us 5 pence, or more if they were feeling generous, and we would do the job. It would usually be something in the garden but occasionally it was washing the car or doing something in the house.
Looking back, it was truly a good deed, because all of the money went to the Cub Pack we were so proud of and we got nothing tangible out of it, other than the feeling of having done something worthwhile which was actually really fulfilling. From those days onwards I have done something good without expectation or hesitation, and I believe that it was those times as a Cub that gave me that mindset.
Bob a Job was the butt of many jokes from those outside the Scout movement but it was truly decent in its intention and execution. Those days are gone with our focus on safety issues but it’s a shame in many ways. We need the principle if not the practice back in our societies across the world more than ever in this selfish world we live in.
Happy Color App Picture
How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?
If someone can’t see me, I would start by describing my film star looks and perfect physique! 🤣🤣 I bet I wouldn’t be the only one either.
I am currently teaching English to Art and Design students online, and yesterday we had a webinar where one of the presenters reflected on the way that we only experience art through vision in Western culture. We completely ignore the other four senses unless we are specifically forced to use them. Why is there this primacy of vision? I think it is because we live in a cultural environment where everything is behind a rope. DON’T TOUCH is thundered at us throughout our lives from our earliest days, through school and into the adult world. Why is this? Well, my theory is that we are not encouraged to take part in art, music or other creative pursuits by mucking around and seeing what happens. We are told there are ways of doing things and that we have to watch experts to see how it is done. Even music, which you would think of as primarily an auditory experience is very much focused on vision. We watch our teachers demonstrating the correct way of doing things, and when our teachers identify a mistake it tends to be a mistake they saw, for example your hand in the wrong place for a particular chord. Musicians who cannot sight read music are regarded as less skilled than those who can. Playing by ear is seen as inferior to playing by sight.
We need to move away from sight on its own and incorporate as many of our other senses as possible. Only then will we fully understand the nature of things.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 