The small black cat is sitting on my chair
Two cushions warm with sun provide a nest
Its little face is happy, its plate bare.

This is easier than a love affair
This is sweet , it is a needed rest
The small black cat is sitting on my chair

I don’t think in my grief that I can bear
A man whose love might put me to the test
The cat is happy and its plate is bare.

Could I start again to cook and care
For anyone with hairs upon their chest?
The small black cat is lounging on my chair,

Yet cats can’t run their hands through my fair hair
Nor hold me in their arms when feeling blessed
The cat is happy and its plate quite bare.

And if I mention Wittgenstein’s great flair
That will be the end of the affair
The small black cat is sitting on my chair
Its little face is happy,  why want more?

 

 

Why I’m not buying the new ‘learn self-control’ mantra

 

“But if we take a wider view we see that people exhibit extraordinary self-control in a whole range of ways in many different areas of their lives. It’s just that these different modes of self-control are not equally valued or celebrated by society. And society expects different people to exert different types of self-control. Gender is an obvious example, with women often expected to be particularly self-controlled in how they express their sexuality, how they control their weight, and how they suppress anger and assertiveness. You only need to look at media coverage of the drinking habits of young New Zealanders to see a highly gendered idea of self-control at play. Inevitably the media uses images of rowdy, out of control young women as the symbol of our youths’ “drinking problems”, even though their behaviour is similar to that of young men.

Some people perform jobs that require immense resolve and patience in handling challenging scenarios and pressures. Flight attendants, nurses, teacher aids for kids with behavioral challenges, to name a few. These professions must practice self-control, perseverance, and self-discipline in often testing situations. But they are rarely deemed worthy of an inspirational article about self-control. Watch carefully the work these people do. It’s often a masterclass in self composure and restraint.””

The images we carry in our minds
Created by us in  our early years
To new realities may make us blind

For early happenings get us into a strong bind
Visual, kinesthetic, blend with care
Into the images within our adult minds

Even if our parents appear kind
Some  babies are unhappy with their fare
To new realities, they make us blind

And if I cut my cloth to my design
To change what I take in to vision fair
I fix the image in my  latent mind

But we can change with friendship and sight hind
These ancient pictures into ones with lesser glare
Then to  reality become less blind

 

From a new perspective, we compare
Our prejudice to what is present here
The images we carry in our minds
To new realities may make us blind

 

 

http://www.positivityblog.com/how-to-stop-overthinking/

 

 

1. Put things into a wider perspective.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of overthinking minor things in life.

So when you are thinking and thinking about something ask yourself:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks?

I have found that widening the perspective by using this simple question can snap me quickly out of overthinking and help me to let that situation go and focus my time and energy on something that actually does matter to me.

2. Set short time-limits for decisions.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/cubed/science-breakthroughs/poetry-brain

 

A LIFETIME’S WORTH OF QUESTIONS

They also discovered a clear difference in how people responded while reading a favourite passage versus reading any of the other texts, in that it activated a section of the brain associated with recognition and recollection. ‘If you are reading a favourite poem you more or less know it by heart,’ explains Professor Zeman, ‘so you’re not going to need very many cues from what’s written on the page and most of what’s happening is going to come from within.’ There was a strong correlation between emotionality and favourite passages.

There were other more tentative findings that Professor Rylance was curious about. ‘When we compared poetry with prose we got more information in some regions that are linked in a network that is called the Default Network,’ explains Professor Zeman, ‘a network of regions in the brain that is particularly active if you just rest. These areas seem to be associated with things we do with our minds when we are resting, like thinking about what’s happened to us recently, thinking about what’s going to happen in the near future, about other people, and that network seems to be more strongly associated with poetry than with prose. I think to be sure about that finding you would want to do a better-controlled study than ours. It was an interesting indication as far as it went.’

http://www.famousliteraryworks.com/carroll_jabberwocky_funny.htm

 

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.