Only learn nonsense if it’s written by Lewis Carroll

When we were at school some of us came across a little geometry probably concerning triangles squares circles etc and I learned something valuable not from the teacher but from the other girls when we were 16 years old.

We had spent a long time studying Pythagoras’ theorem

And when we sat our O level exam  one of the questions was to prove Pythagoras theorem for which they kindly provided a triangle

The triangle had three points labeled A,B,C.

So I thought that’s an easy question when you spent probably two or four weeks studying this theorem

After the examination was over I was talking to some of my friends and one of them said to me I couldn’t prove pythagoas theorem.

Because in the textbook it was labeled

X,Y,Z

Maybe I was naive to think that the proof did not depend on the letters that we used to denote the points of the triangle.

This was the A stream in a  convent grammar school.

So everybody must have had an IQ above 120 if that means anything which I don’t believe it does by the way. IQ is not really very significant or importance which is fortunate because the last time I did a test I got 65 when a hundred is the average.

I think I must be an imbecile how amazing this i managed to get a degree

If several girls { probably more than half the class} were not able to answer the question because they had learnt the answer by memory they did nothing to understand what they were doing.

Furthermore they didn’t know that was not the right way to learn. They believed studying was memorizing passages which were nonsense to them or proofs which were nonsense.

So it just makes me wonder just how useful education is to most of us

Maybe there’s a problem about dealing with the abstract rather than the concrete.

I never taught geometry so I don’t know what it’s like but I would have thought it’s important to get across to the children or the students that this theorem does not depend on the name you gift the points of the triangle.

It seems obvious to me but perhaps I’m not like other people but I really don’t believe that…… I think people don’t realize that it ought to  make sense and if it doesn’t make sense they have to ask the teacher to explain it again

I have taught at Oxford I have taught at a  polytechnic and I did not find many students who were unable to learn mathematics if it was presented in a sensible way. Even in people who had not done O levels or A levels

But it’s worth remembering that even the cleverest children find geometry quite difficult and do not grasp what is important about it.

And it is not just geometry that they are learning by heart in a meaningless manner I think it was apply to a lot of what they learn.

And so it must be that learning and study can be very destructive to the mind. It’s just a way of keeping adolescents off the streets

Never learn nonsense by heart unless it is written by Lewis Carroll

It is not good to learn parrot fashion or to memorize proofs that you don’t understand

So if anyone in your family asks you for help with their homework try to see whether they understand the general principle behind it do not help them to learn proofs by heart when they have no idea what it’s about at all.

I can’t really see why we spent five years in my school to reach the peak of Pythagoras’s theorem

No ok I understand why it takes five years to do o level at arithmetics containing six wonderful things as compound interest and percentages; how could that take five years?

It goes to show that school is a prison in a way to keep children under control.

I recollect that I had done o level arithmetic by the edge of 11 in the primary school working at my own pace.

I’m going to spend 5 years learning it all again

Yes compound interest is quite difficult but if you get a job on your earning money and you want to save you will learn about interest very quickly when you really need to and if you don’t need to it’s very  tedious

Next time, who invented the straight line?

I was happy dancing on your knee

You let me knead your face like plasticine

I loved your merry eyes,alive to me

Mother you were beautiful and free

Lost in that sweet moment like a dream

I was happy dancing on your knee

No more tantrums no more did I scream

I loved your merry face so live to me

Your countebance  the sun, your eyes its beams

I was happy dancing on your knee.

I saw you and my daddy drinking tea.

In your love I lived as in a dream

I loved your merry face, your need for. me.

From my mind I expel what is mean.

I  do remember happiness again

I was happy dancing on your knee

I loved your smiling face as you loved me

The only knowledge worth having is not the knowledge born of experience but the knowledge that gives birth to experience.

Adam Phillips.

Preface. The hands of the living God by Marion Milner (1969)

Playing with bright buttons from the tin

I lost myself in patterns colours shapes

Pleasure and  enjoyment is no sin.

Forced learning without joy may feel like rape.

I learnt without the knowledge that I learned.

I lost myself in thoughtless happens tance

And in this way abstraction’s rightly earned.

Does thinking need such joy for  eloquence?

Then children learn unknowing they have learned

I wish I were at home in that old room

The coal fire burning red, the cat asleep

My brother and my sisters went  too soon.

The joy and woe are mixed and so I weep.

How short each stage of life,oh, all too brief

The caterpillar gnaws upon the leaf

I went to church on Sunday with a mole

From MI5, I tried to save his soul.

If God can’t make saint of every man

Why the Dickens do I think I can?

What other mysteries can my body  know?

Thank God,I  only signed for Pay and Go

Underneath the silence there is peace

I pray the  silent music  brings relief

Poem

Silence in the centre of our soul

Silence in the  love that makes us whole

O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat 

One day we will die and that is sure

Let death be named the illness with no cure.

As Shakespeare said we we have no teeth, no sight

But the old can still be happy in the night

Although arthritis makes the body ache

I still have got my appetite for steak.

My joints are bust, my toes are cold and bent

Where is my mother now, for I am spent

Bring me frankincense and myrrh, bring me some tea.

I want a wise  man now,well are you he?

The grammar is the best thing in thr book

It makes no sense to me, come take a look.

I think I’ll go to Ireland when I’m old.

Take me to the fire for I am cold

https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/09/22/winnicott-democracy/

T’was but a lion hunting me.

I saw it hide behind the tree

Why do lions feel so free?

I’ll love both you and me.

W

T’was but a tiger looking pale

He’s anaemic,grant him bail.

Why do mothers  often wail

The key must be a Yale.

T’was but a leopard black as coal

In my dream he made me whole

Catch his tears inside a bowl.

Is he a secret mole?

The panther also looked  deep black

From his head right down his back.

Give him beer from my six pack

I love all that I Iack

Why do women curl their hair?

Why is human life unfair?

You must do what you can dare.

The beasts are in their lair m

DREAMS

Mary dreamed she was riding her bicycle.She was going up a hill and then approaching a very complicated roundabout.
How can I look at the map when I am riding my bike,she asked herself.Anyway I don’t have a map and I’ve never been here before.She looked down and saw she was wearing some dark blue denim culottes and red suede knee high boots with laces.
I don’t remember buying these,she thought.She felt quite hot even though she wore only an olive needle-cord coat over a Breton T shirt.
Goodness me, she cried.I look smart.
Her spectacles clouded over as she was sweating.How will I know where to turn off when I don’t know where I am or where I am going to.
When she woke up she filled Stan’s beer tankard with tea.
What a lot of tea,miaowed Emile.
I thought it saves carrying the tea pot. I’m going to go back to bed as I feel a bit peculiar.
You have got a fleece nightgown on.Maybe you are too hot,he replied.
I am trying to save money on the heating,Mary answered.I see I can save even more money by buying 2 pairs of Hotters sandals for £97.Usually they are £127.
That saves £30,the clever animal informed her.
I think it’s quite misleading,Mary answered.It only saves money if you were already planning to buy them.I have such strange feet I don’t like to bare them.
Do you wear shoes in bed with a boyfriend.Emile asked.
I’ve not got a boyfriend.Emile/
But if you did?
Well.you know, an older man might not wish to go to bed with me.He might like just sitting holding my hand and kissing me.
OK said ,Emile.It sounds a trifle boring to me.
Don’t be so cheeky, Emile.Talking to me is not boring.
No, he said, but it’s nice running up and down your legs in bed.
I could hardly expect a man to do that.He might injure me.
It was just a kind of example,he replied nervously.

Suddenly the back door opened and in ran Annie from next door.She was wearing a mustard coloured track suit and orange trainers with matching lip gloss.
What a horrible colour,Mary cried.
It’s the in colour now,Annie said kindly.I am getting my hair dyed too.
Bright yellow is better,Mary told her.Except it attracts insects.
Insects,I don’t want those.How are you,dear.You look flushed, she responded emotionally.
No wonder. I’ve been cycling all night in my dreams.Why can’t I dream of motor bikes?
Don’t ask me,Annie told her.I am utterly ignorant.Do you need therapy?
I don’t think so,Mary answered.I need to know where I am going.Do I decide or is it my Inner Wisdom or Higher Power.I could use higher power on that bike.
Just take it one rotation at a time, Annie murmured.
I thought it was one step.Mary answered
You can’t take a step on a bike.
I suppose not.But I could ride up a step on the bike.
Don’t ride up a step ladder,Anne advised.How would you get down again?
Let’s have some coffee,Mary cried.Here we are ,the kettle is boiling.
Let’s just sit and brood.
But don’t ruminate,purred Emile.It makes you ill.
Just let your mind go blank.
And so I did.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jul/22/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

Looking East towards Long Mynd.

3 October.

Dyspepia…,.. aversion to looking at women. ( Or men)

Bronchitis… An allergy to wild horses.

Neuralgia.. where is Nalgia?

Disseminated sclerosis.   . A desire to spread rumours

Osteoporosis,…. .. apprehension about the Austro Hungarian empire

Boil on the knee .. This is a new addition to the boil in the bag menu

Gastroenteritis…. What you get when you visit a gastro pub.

Nausea… A seaside resort in North America.

Inflamed gullet,….

A fish that is cooked directly over a flame at your table.

Bunion… …A special kind of onion used in English cookery

.

https://www.mariapapadima.com/adolescents-and-perfectionism-some-psychoanalytic-ideas/#:~:text=Winnicott%2C%20instead%2C%20was%20interested%20in,at%20the%20start%20of%20life.

In our yard, we had a dog on wheels.

Its fur was almost gone,it was so worn

I sat upon its musty back,my steed.

I thought that he looked sad, he looked forlorn

In that house my grandma lived and died

My father was a child it was his dog

Rich as grass in meadows was its fur.

The rusty wheels were bright and pierced the fog

I see the yard the coal shed and the lav.

The green back gate my grandad coming in

The shed where bikes were piled up in a rush.

The cat jumped  up so fast on the ash bin

Dad went off then grandad went off too.

I see them coming home in polished shoes

You might be poor but still you could look neat

A Sunday coat,best shoes on polished feet

Pray Father,give me some washing.I’ve got Wikileaks and a new obsession.
Tell me more,my child.I am feeling bored.
I think someone has been inside my computer.
They can’t be human. so why worry?
Why not,Father?
Well, we are not thin enough to get into the computer.
Ah, they turn themselves into particles and come in with the current..
when it’s high tide.
Do you mean tied?
No,Father.I’ve not been reading that book.Fifty Blades All Gay
Neither have I but in the confessional I’ve heard it all and more.
And how does that make you feel,Father?
Why pay to read a fantasy when you can dream up your own?
Some are born dim… others become dimner by choice
Well,any sins tonight,my dear?
I’m so sorry.I was planning to tell a lie but I forgot.
There’s a list of sins in the Missal…have you read those?
Yes,I’ve not tried most of them yet… though I just got a slight pang of anger
when a brick fell onto my head from a clear blue sky.
That’s natural anger,my child.but I feel it was odd for a brick to fall like that
Has a brick ever fallen on your head,Father.
Not yet but I’m only 97.I must buy a hard hat
Wow,you look much olde than 97 r.Are you longing to diet?
Why, is there no food in heaven?
I wonder who cooks if they eat up food
Maybe they live on manna.
Does God eat food?
That was one topic we never did in the cemetery.
Do you mean the seminary.
At my age, they are all one.
You have reached Nirvana….congratulations.
Well.I’d prefer a cup of tea.
You English!
What are you?
I’m a great Dane.
Did you say a grey Dane.
That too.
Well perk up;the show’s not quite over till the gnat really stings.
Do gnats eat string?
String… it’s my passion.Love it or mate it…get involved.
Live a little.
And for your penance… you must have a bath…
Why?
I don’t like the way you smell.
Well,I am a dog.. we like to sniff.May I borrow your hanky?
Definitely,I shall dry your tears for you and please try to commit few intriguing sins before you come back here.
I’ll wash it for you.And dry it out of doors
Well,it’s not over till that gnat gets its sting and the phone gets a ring

The Case for Having a Hobby https://nyti.ms/2G2D0cG

Z

Isn’t it telling that you forgot?” said Brigid Schulte, author of “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time,” when I told her I had blanked on the word.

“That’s so indicative of where we are in our culture right now, that you can actually forget what it is to have something you like to do that’s not a) tied to work and b) productive,” Ms. Schulte said.

While researching her book Ms. Schulte realized how many “lifehacks” make hobbies out to be keys to productivity rather than activities just meant to be enjoyed, and she saw that it was difficult for people to get out of that way of thinking.

But eventually, she found that people responded to “neuroscience and research about how you need a space where you’re calm that leads to insight.” Yet even with that knowledge in hand, Ms. Schulte said, people still saw hobbies as means to improve their performance at work. “That’s the only way I can break through to people about why having leisure is important.”

Indeed, Americans’ difficult relationship with leisure is nothing new.

“People forget that when we were negotiating the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, there were three conditions people wanted: minimum wage, 40-hour workweek and mandatory two-week vacation,” Ms. Schulte said. We got two out of three, “and we’ve been stuck ever since.” One in four Americans has no access to paid time off, and those who do often don’t take all of their vacation time or they spend their vacations checking email. Many of us have been taught to hate not being productive, and we’ve structured our culture around work, not play.

I have been writing poetry which obviously uses metaphors. I notice a lot of metaphors are based on terms used in art especially drawing.

Ultimately most metaphors must be based on something concrete in the real world. There are probably a lot of metaphor based on growing things in your garden. Based on our existence as objects in the real world and our bodies therefore and our minds

Don’t run before you can walk. Mathematics is studied from very simple levels to The heights of abstractions so don’t try to learn calculus before you have mastered arithmetics

In that sentence master is a metaphor we don’t literally master arithmetic but we could master a wild horse or another person. There’s nowhere else for metaphor to come from than the world of our senses. And that will vary somewhat for everybody especially in different countries different places different work situations personal relationships etc

Willpower is often lacking but we can take a horse to the water but we can’t make it drink

I’m going to solve this problem if it’s the last thing I do.

That feels stupid because if you die after you solve the problem you won’t know that is is solved will you?

Sometimes it’s good to widen your view. Tunnel vision limits you.

Focusing on a very small part of the outside world is necessary at times but it can also be dangerous when you look down your footpath and it looks clear but if you had a broader view you might see there is a lion in the field next to your house

If you are looking at anything you will see it differently if you

Take a step back.

Get things in perspective

See things rom a different angle

And turn things over in your mind.

So I am going to write about this eventually because I think it’s very interesting.

I’m frequently impressed when I remember sayings adages, things my mother used to say which are often related to bodily states

When I couldn’t find my glasses I was searching nervously or frantically and only found them when I gave up…..

I remembered my mother saying

You can’t see, for looking.

This is very interesting because like language itself and the developments from it these are coming from the lips of ordinary People. And they’re recognisinhg something which is only in the last hundred years been scientifically described I believe.

There are two kinds of seeing

Very focussed seeing.. narrow purposive vision… This is when we’ve got some thing which our mind is pinned on to and we ignore everything else apart from that very narrow bit of the world that we see very intently. We can also switch into this when we’re under stress, severe stress sometimes.

Then there is the way that the owl must look when it is looking from the tree for something to eat

Wide vision where you’re not focusing sharply on any individual spot in the landscape but your eyes widened and you’re scanning the whole at once. When the owl sees something then he or she must switch into the sharply focused mode and swoop down to catch the little beast that was spotted so the owl could have something to eat

I think artists also will be familiar with this. The eye muscles have to be relaxed which  will happen spontaneously when necessary or sometimes you can do it deliberately. There are breathing techniques and relaxation techniques which can switch into this mode

Going back to the adage

You can’t see for looking.

See refers to broad vision with the eye muscles relaxed

And ,cleverly, looking refers to sharply focused vision

So if you’re looking too hard you can’t see

Well it took me 48 hours to find my glasses

I had taken them off in my bedroom to put some sunscreen on my face and then I couldn’t find them

I was looking in the bedroom for them

But when I found them they were downstairs in the sitting room

I wasn’t even trying to find them them and I’d given up completely

My old ones are adequate for most purposes but nevertheless if you if you wear glasses you know that having the ones you’re used to especially for reading is really very important and some of us feel incomplete without them.

I’m always grateful when I find something and I often look up at the sky and say

Thank you.

And thank you to all those human beings that came before us and left us wisdom in these sayings. And this was long before they were schools and universities and other learning organizations.

I sometimes think that we are getting less intelligence as time goes on.

My heart was in my mouth [so I had to eat suck it all day which gave my thumb a rest]
My heart sank [ to the bottom of the pond in Barrow Bridge]
I fell head over heels in love with a cat.[That’s why I had no children as inter-species marriage is not yet allowed but soon it will be here]
I could not swallow his excuse as my mouth was full of chocolate buttons I had torn off my uniform..well they looked like chocolate]
That is hard to digest.[So may I please spit it out?]
I spat him out [but he came back as he was on an elastic rope]

I was wondering if new phrases come into existence now and I don’t recall any.Is it because we are no longer so involved in creating our language or because there are experts in academia who study it.At one time ordinary people made buildings etc and m ust have developed skills in geometry etc from a practical point of view.And it was they who invented writing and numbers etc not people in Universities who do not create but analayse and criticise and study signs and connections.
So has the rise of experts made us stupider than people were in the past?Is it poets who invent new idioms?

My eyes nearly leaped out of my head when he passed by…
Luckily I had put superglue down the sides of them at breakfast time.
My hands grasped the nettle and I almost threw the flowers at his head.Then he said:
You are the hoover of my soul.
Walls have fears,you know.
A rolling brick gathers no floss.
I patted him on the wreck and we parted with no acrimony and no real money either.What is acrimony?
I’m a pharisee and ‘i’m ok.Jewish by right and a whirling prayer.
I can’t live without hue or colour
Tint me this day.oh Lord.
Does God sell salt on the internet.He has a Lot.Sorry Lot’s wife.Does it clatter?

Hennetwistle has a railway stop
The name is Viking now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants water, here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the flowers so wild, their ghosts still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul

The music is the waves as they run high
Across the pebbly sands onto the road
Then groaning of the shingle as waves die

The fish that dwell deep in the dark, dark brine
The flow within as outer waters flow
The music of the waves as they run high

The moon reflects sun’s light to other eyes
Above the seas which rise up to its goad.
Then groans the shingle as the steep waves die

The sea holds hidden goods where we can’t pry
In the deep the heavy water moulds
The music of the waves as they run high

All the day and all of the black night
The seas and oceans change from high to low
Ah, groans the earth as each wave has to die

Re-hear these sounds, are they a sacred code?
As angels wrestled, Jacob feared the Lord
His music is the waves as they run high
His groaning is the shingle as waves die

The fields in flames, the stubble set alight
The earth herself was burning in our sight
The ancient lands of Essex still grew grain
As hares ran into hedgerows seared with pain

The empty road, the smoke, the land on fire
The ashes left a newer crop would sire
The land to Epping vast and flat was bright
Yet covered in its smoke there was no light

Our little human world is but a skin
Destruction easy with a word or bomb
Dependent on the government, those liars
Weak as watered gruel, they must be fired

Caught inside the symbols of the Earth
From destruction comes a brave new birth

Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
Tinged with grey from lack of proper care,
While from the Channel sing the dread foghorns

Sailors in the night long for new dawn
Fear boats of refugees may still sail there
Snow clouds hang like canopies well torn

A dinghy holds the Saviour lately born
There is no space on earth safe from great fear
From the Channel sigh the families drowned

From maternal space, Jesu is torn
His father holds his arms around those dear
Snow clouds hang, are lacy wings no more

The hearts of British ” natives” have turned sour
Into Jesu’s side we thrust our spears
Tune the channel.Requiems need scores

All lives now, and all of time is here
Do not mistake the song of silent choirs.
Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
While in the Channel, stuttering are the horns