https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/08/choosing-friends-friendship-breakdown?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Neuroscientists have shown that our brain does not reveal to us the world as it is, but rather as possible interpretations of what is going on around us, drawn from our past experience. Since no two people ever have exactly the same experience, no two people ever see anything in exactly the same way.

https://8c5f96364816ee70cc203e6a4a773430.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-45/html/container.html

Where is that light which once consoled me?

That held me and  brought love into my heart

Why am I in this darkness without you?

And from all human contact feel apart?

Now I’m old, I’m crippled and ignored.

Ignored by Man but also split from God

Where can I find my comfort in this life?

Shall I give up and wait for death instead?

Where can I find my peace from all this strife?

In despair I lie all day in bed

We cannot force the holy and the good

But wait in silence and  in taut despair

How to make such darkness home to light?

Confused  and lost, where is my love tonight?

I am a gleaming aubergine
in an oval dish
My purple skin is polished
Like BBC English.

I await my fate for I am ripe
My seeds fulfil my wish
Soon,soon the knife will cut me up
As corn in fields is threshed.

I’d rather lie in Egypt’s soil
By birds and insects bit
But here I am in England
Where irony is wit.

After cutting comes the salt
As in a bowl I sit
For I am moist like lady’s parts
As poets have much writ.

Moussaka is my destiny
And as you bite and chew
I shall be what Jesus was
And give my grace to you

I am fried in olive oil
To give me flavour ripe.
Dried in cloth and placed in pot
Atop the meat I ride.

My colour brings all eyes to me
As I lie in a heap.
Some like carrot heads so bright
Royal purple is my state.

So better than a lamb I am
For a sacrifice.
I am proud and gleam like gold
As Caesar-like I’m knifed.

My seeds through sewers deep shall pass
And somewhere come to grief.
I shall grow again and be
Portrayed by a leaf.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/dfd2d8fa-a97d-4cc4-91c1-1f83bbb82f5d?shareToken=0b1821b11f4de0d5ad603f715143a7e7

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/25/poem-of-the-week-new-republic-by-michal-rubin

https://lithub.com/nature-is-not-going-to-cure-you-on-raynor-winns-fabricated-memoir/

Literature and lies and other strange things

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/24/gwyneth-lewis-why-i-wrote-nightshade-mother-emotional-abuse?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Art by author

Virtuosity,

,….being very charitable.

Precocity,,,going mad before most of us do

Animosity,,,. ,…kindness to animals

Ferocity,,.,,having iron teeth and using them.

Democracy,,…. demons running a country.

Humorisity,,,….getting a degree in Yankee jokes

Criminology,,,, understanding criminals

Religiosity,,,.misinterpreting love.

Tasmania,,…going mad in the sunshine.

Curiosity,,,.a desire to heal the sick

Originality,….

The desire to make a fresh start in life.

A mirage–a mirror that tells your age

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

I saw the dust motes singing in soft air
The yellow grey, the light where nothing’s clear
The silent chorus hurts me as I stare

The heart feels unprotected, as if bare
Only when we’re lonely are we here
I saw the dust motes dancing in soft air

The little things we don’t see till we care
The eyes that signal bring to birth our fear
The silent chorus gabbles as I stare

The Essex fields are huge like mass despair
Yet summer poppies bright make them so dear
I saw the dust motes dancing on fresh air

Life is like a vehicle we steer
Yet unseen hands in wisdom change the gear
I heard the dust motes singing in soft air
The small still chorus tells me what to dare

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/05/in-a-culture-obsessed-with-positive-thinking-can-letting-it-go-be-a-radical-act?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

When you’re trying to do a very hard Su doku puzzle or even an easy one it’s very tempting to make a big effort to try a very hard to do it.

But in fact this is the wrong approach. Yes you have to read all the information and you have to know what you meant to do to solve the problem but tensing your muscles and trying hard will not help you to do it

The mind is much bigger than we think and once we’ve got the general information the mind itself will be pondering over the problem and will come up with answers

So why don’t we do this normally? I suppose we don’t like to rely on something or someone else we want to feel we’ve done it all by ourselves but we’re never really by ourselves because we’ve always got to the deeper parts of the mind the part that produces dreams and the remembers things and learns things that you didn’t know that you were learning

I think the French used to call this part of the mind

L’autre moi.

The other me.

But this is not talked about at school or even at university. It could be that fear of being dependent on another person when your parents were harsh or punitive may  make you want you to rely only on yourself.

It is true that you have to cultivate your garden in other words you’ve got to know something about the problem and I’ve done the necessary reading and preperation or even talk to someone about it

But after that you’ve got to rely on your un conscious mind.

Some people may have a closer relationship where their unconscious than others do

I have read this approach helps in sport for example playing tennis is described in the book

A life of one’s own’ by Marion Milner’ so

If you’re interested in art you might like that book also or just generally well worth reading

Relaxation is the most important skill or should we call it a skill when it should come naturally to us?

Western society values efforts and hard work and of course there’s always a certain amount of that in any situation like running a home for example but even that can be done in a more relaxed manner then we think.

My grandad was a coal miner for 50 years starting at the age of 14 and I don’t know what he would have said about relaxing at work but he  was very proud of himself. He brought up six children alone as well and he used to work nights. But it did have some bad consequences like my mother always had problem sleeping. Especially when she was left in the same situation after 11 years of marriage.

The other factor is that tension is one way that we control our feelings and if we let go of the tension we may hear some interesting idea coming from unconscious mind but we might also feel some feelings that we don’t want to feel because we’re frightened of them sometimes with good cause.

When I was at school I was trying to solve a mathematical problem with no luck until I went to bed. When I closed my eyes I saw the numbers I had been trying to deal with rearranging themselves into a new pattern and suddenly I saw the solution. It was a mystical experience.

It doesn’t mean that if you are relaxed you will never suffer pain again you may not suffer the same kind of pain that you did when you were trying to do your homework when you were 15 years old but there is always pain and suffering in different degrees from not being able to have the clothes that you want when you’re a teenager to suddenly realizing a person you thought was a friend is actually someone who doesn’t like you but you’ll never been able to see it before.

Then there’s marriage and it’s problems: life is never easy for most of us. We can’t envy the royal family either.

I had to phone the Guardian customer services today. I told them that white I’ve been ill have found it’s helpful to do su doku puzzles

But I cannot do the medium one today!

I asked him if anyone else complained and he said no so maybe it’s just me that’s my brain has done too many and is refusing to to cooperate now.

Oh dear will I have to read Principia Mathematica again? Well to say again is really telling a lie because I never read it before.

Bertrand Russell said his brain never felt the same after he wrote that book and in a way I wish he had not written it because it’s all based on an error.

Quite what this errorv is I cannot tell you. But there’s something in it at least to a contradiction and you know that we cannot have contradictions in mathematics

What about in theology can we have contradictions there?

Belief in God has been difficult for many because we used to think God was omnipotent and good but if that is the case why do we have evil in the world?

I know that some people like the nuns who educated me would say it’s to prove that you have willpower so that you can resist evil

In itself bitvseems very bad. If God created this world and caused a lot of suffering to see whether we would have the will power to refrain from causing more suffering or even to help those who are suffering it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me I cannot accept it as a theological argument

But then if God is not all powerful and all good is he really God?

If you were to study mathematics and especially numbers you would find that you very soon get into very complicated territory so that very few people could understand it and if this is true of numbers how much more is it true of people and the whole world it may be beyond our comprehension.

Well not maybe but certainly definitely it is beyond our comprehension but I’m not sure where to go from there

There is suffering inherent in the fact that our bodies are made of flesh and can be wounded and damaged either by accident or by evil or by illness etc

So there is going to be emotional pain and grief cause by the suffering of our loved ones including their death.

It’s particularly severe when children die either by illness or even worse in war.

One are my schoolmates died at the age of 15.

The suffering of her parents was very severe not to mention her brother and sister but they did not question God

I still remember her father reading out

The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away

Blessed be the name of the Lord

That’s been in my mind ever since

I was ill and ate a custard tart.

I thought of Judi dench as time went by

Her partner liked such cakes and so do I

It’s hard to stop but easier to start

What’s your favourite cake when you feel glum?

If you’re  diabetic please ignore

My husband was and we ate cakes no more

Now he’s up above my time has come.

But I would give them up if he returned

Oh kindly face , oh love where have you gone?

I miss your jokes your acting and the fun.

Where is the love that in my heart I learned?

I ate the custard tart, I feel alone

I’d rather eat just bread if you were here

Everyone must die, it’s true, I fear

Some days since you’ve gone my heart’s a stone

Bitter is the sorrow of the lost

But surely we must love despite the cost

I realised that Sudoku puzzles are closed systems and therefore every thing is closely connected to everything else

So if you are having a problem with for example the number 3 don’t look directly for the answer because if you start looking at a different number like nine or seven if you can find some movement there or even the solution automatically this will simplify the problem you’re having with number 3.

Now a human life is not a completely closed system on the whole. But even so if you are having a problem with one part of your life and you can’t get any movement there look at something completely different and see if you can do anything about that. If you can it will very likely help you with the original problem or at least it will help you to pass the time.

Sometimes if you are feeling depressed and you can’t do much about it it helps to do the washing up or change the bed sheets or pay a bill anything that needs doing

Something physical is often a good idea.

Movement itself can help. physical movement or doing things like puzzles makes your mind move about a bit

After doing some of these manual tasks often people feel better because at least they have done washing or the washing up or paid their bills

But if it doesn’t help just hang on because life itself is movement and things will change.

In the meantime I’m giving some money to the Red cross because there are problems that other people are having in the complicated world of wars and suffering and even if you’re feeling depressed or anxious you can still give a little help to someone else.

I don’t expect people to be grateful for what they have because when you’re depressed lonely anxious you don’t want people telling you to look on the bright side . Later you can be grateful for what you have and the people around you.

And remember in time everything passes.

And life is hard

The end of Essex Road, the slope, the gates,

The entrance to the park, the green invites

The swans and geese are wrangling with their mates.

I idle on a bench and contemplate.

In ‘diligent indolence’ with  Keats I write

The end of that old road, the curve, the gates.

I must embrace this life, enjoy my fate

The scent of hot damp trees, the feel of sight

The swans and geese are mingling with their mates

Oj joy of greeny grass, oh glorious state.

Oh dandelions and weeds, mosquito bites!

I like the way the road slopes through the gates

Oh heaven above, oh,earth beneath, all’s right

The celandines are brilliant with delight

The swans so white are gliding with their mates

The end of this dear road, the curve, the gates.

Art Katherine

I felt like a collapsed old football

When I woke up this morning in bed

I thought I was going to church then

I went out with the devil instead

The devil has got all the energy

He’s got a  real life of his own

Sometimes what’s offered in church seems

Like playing with long whitened bones.

The devil won’t conform to the rules so

He is free to be his true self

What are we doing on earth now

Storing up nothing but wealth?

What would you do with your freedom

What do you do with your joy

Even in one single moment

There are people that you could annoy.

Be true to your own personal values

For what else has anyone got?

Try to write your own diary

That person whom you have forgot

I wish we were in Blythburgh again .

By the floodlit church on holy nights

The angels in the roof eternal, pure

A gift to eye and heart and mind and sight 

Down the river near to Southworld town 

The ferryman will row you in his boat. 

For just 10 shillings you can get across. 

Already in my purse I have some notes

We sat high on the harbour wall one day

Beside the marsh the footpath gave delight

You could hear the crickets’ wings and you could pray

Ahead was Southworld and its built delights

I see it now but in my own mind’s eye

For you are gone and I have said goodbye

Puzzles can be intriguing or annoying or boring but they don’t usually cause worry

People’s faces can be intriguing as well but they are can also cause us a wide variety of emotions including anxiety fear and worry but also happiness  and joy

Solving a hard number puzzle is a lot easier than living life as a human interpret ing other people’s feelings and faces on behaviour

If you were no good at maths don’t worry because you probably good at lots of other things like communication with your beloved people and the families

As long as you can deal with money in your budget then you don’t really need to worry about maths. If you are a carpenter or a cook you will have learned a lot of mathematics without knowing it

One afternoon Mary decided to visit Jean in the nursing home. Jean could not walk and😔 she had severe dementia and was an angry woman but nevertheless there was something about her that Mary liked enough

Can I come along as well cried her cat Emile peevishly,,,?

No Jean doesn’t like cats and she’s a very determined woman so I’m not going to set her off by taking you in there and don’t say you can stay my handbag because it’s hot were and I don’t want you to suffocate silently.

Would it be alright if I suffocated while mewing?

?

Emile I cannot risk you suffocating because I love you that’s why I’m leaving you at home by yourself. You can always go in the garden and meet some other cats

Emile stalked away like a woman with injured pride

When Mary got there, Jean was having a bad day

I want to die she screamed. Will you kill me? Please do please do,,,

It’s illegal for me to kill you Mary told her rudely

Oh you’re such a coward Mary: be brave and kill me. I’d be really grateful

Well it’s very difficult to kill someone like you because you are naturally strong and strangling you  would be extremely tough probably impossible and how could you be grateful to me when you were dead?

If you believe  there’s an afterlife then you cannot kill yourself or be killed by me it’s murder in either case.

You’re a chuckling print, Jean shouted.

I understand what you mean but I think you’ve got the wrong word! I have seen this written down but I’ve never heard anyone so it out loud that is, c*nt.

Why what’s wrong with it?

Nothing in itself but when it’s combined with another word like f*cking it becomes unspeakably unpleasant and anyway you should not use that name as a curse word. It’s where new life is born. It’s like a flower like a rose or a carnation

Mary thought to herself  I think I’m going to write a poem!

I never said it  answered Jean but there’s got to be some way of expressing my frustration

Talking about the afterlife Mary said politely you jave been married twice. When you go to heaven which of your husbands do you want to be with you for all eternity?

Thinking about it very carefully Jean sat silent for quite some time. Then she gave a most intelligent response.

I loved them both the same

In that case you are a very fortunate woman although I know it’s very hard for you now. Would you like me to bring my cat next time I come? He is called Emile and he is very very interesting and can speak good English. Or I have a friend who’s a paramedic called Dave and he makes very good cakes and biscuits and likes to wear dresses in the summer

Triumphantly Jean announced that she would like to see both the cat and the paramedic as she was very bored in the nursing home and she loved to talk to people or even to animals

And so do most of us

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/problem_1

I said I’m writing my blog not I think that you’re God

I said what is for dinner, not I think you’re a sinner.

I said do you know any new words, not I think  love’s absurd.

I said try my new bakes, not dive into the lake

I said Donald is mad, not I are you my dad?

I said my heart is so strong, not the charts are all wrong.

I said do you like my new briefs, not you are the chief.

I said is God the answer, not you are a good dancer

I said I’m tired of these puzzles not keep your dog muzzled

It’s hard to communicate apparently most of us live lives of complete fiction or almost complete fiction in other words we invent the people we love and then we get a terrible shock when they don’t behave according to our frictional point of view

So is love unreal?

How do you feel?

How do you act when your suitcase is packed?

I stare at your face as if you are today’s puzzle of numbers.

I can’t read the signs so easily

I know the answers are all there but how to perceive them?

And what if my gaze becomes a glare and I hurt you?

Surely that intense  stare is not the way to learn the face of the beloved

How to soften the eyes so they caress rather than sting?

On the train everyone is bowed over their newspaper or on their screen

They’re all trying to solve puzzles but who can solve the puzzle of human existence?

Who can give us a meaning for our lives?

Sometimes the gazelof another can be enlightening.

But we can’t stare into the faces on the other commuters so we stare at our puzzles instead hoping to learn something useful more than just to find out which numbers are missing.

Children do stare, when do they stop doing that?

Like when I walked into the living room with the Guardian and said to my mother in front of the visitors

What’s rape?

She never did tell me but after that we got the Times instead which seemed rather peculiar in our working class Street but who knows what the motives were?

The front page used to be full of ada.

Flats or rooms to rent

Sometimes holiday accommodation

It engrossed me

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/well/mind/how-childhood-trauma-can-affect-your-long-term-health.html

As anyone with a sibling or more than one child knows, people will respond differently to the same situation. How much do individual traits change or mitigate the effect of ACEs?

A. If you take a population of 1,000 people or 10,000 people or 100,000 people and they all have one ACE versus two ACEs versus seven ACEs — what you’re going to see is this substantially increased risk of health problems. Are there still going to be folks who by virtue of their biology or circumstance or environment are able to be resilient in the face of adversity? There are. Just like there’s the guy who smoked two packs a day and drank whiskey every day and lived to be 100. The takeaway for me is how we’re trying to reduce the exposure on a population level.

Q. You’ve said that your work on ACEs led you to your husband. What do you mean by that?

A. I won’t comment on any of my ex-boyfriends, but I was like — whoa — the type of relationship that I have has a profound impact on my life span and my health. Not just how I feel, but this could seriously shorten my life expectancy.

My husband is a person who I feel heals me from the inside out. He’s been really instrumental in what I’ve been able to accomplish in terms of starting my organization

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-donald-trump-political-depression-mental-health-2016-psychiatric-cbt-methods-heal-britain-a7528581.htmlPolitics

Quote:

So what is helpful? What’s the cure for political depression? For one thing, liberal conservatives are going to have to borrow from some of the left’s irrepressible optimism. But if my last few months of lethargy and dark doctors’ waiting rooms have taught me anything, it’s that all those in search of a cure for our current political malaise could do well to look at recent advances in the mental health ward. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, or CBT, is today’s wonder cure – but what does it actually entail, and can it save a country as well as it can a person?

CBT is all about breaking unhelpful mental patterns. It’s also about the art of the possible. Under pressure at work? Find one request you can reasonably make of your boss. Determined to run a marathon to feel better about being obese? Start by using the stairs instead of a lift.

In politics, focusing on the big picture can often seem overwhelming. The future is bleak; there are a lot of battles that the forces of liberalism seem unlikely to win. When I think of Trump in the White House, Erdogan imprisoning critics in Turkey, martial law in the Philippines – I could continue – I curl up and go back to bed. When I think about the two refugee friends who I’ve got coming to stay next week, I scurry up and start readying

https://www.pesi.co.uk/blog/2019/may/five-reasons-why-there%E2%80%99s-no-such-thing-as-%E2%80%98mental

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1.  May

Five Reasons Why There’s No Such Thing As ‘Mental Health’

• 15th May 2019
• Benjamin Fry

We are in the midst of Mental Health Awareness Week. But for Benjamin Fry, the term is highly misleading. The founder of residential trauma treatment centre Khiron House, Fry believes we can only understand ‘mental health’ by going back to the body, getting curious about the nervous system, and helping our clients to see their ‘invisible lions’.

Your body is a chain of dominos, responding to events and experiences. We often call the final few dominos ‘mental health’, but what does that mean?

We are usually referring to an experience that shows up in something we call our mind, but even that can get confused; for example, is feeling anxious the same as being worried? Does an alarming thought, or a miserable one, constitute anxiety or depression? And if I yell at my wife do I have a mental health problem, a personality disorder? Or am I just an ass?

To sort this out, you have to go a few steps back along the chain of dominos. There, you will find that there really isn’t any such thing as mental health. Instead, there are a series of consequences to the way that our complex human organisms respond to threat; and particularly how we have adapted to respond to threat badly.

One: We usually end up dysregulated by the time our childhood is over, if not well before

When a gazelle is chased by a lion, it tends to match its response very nicely to the actual threat from the lion in the here and now. So, if the lion pops up on the horizon, then it will start to get a bit vigilant. If the lion gets too close, it will run. If the lion is right behind it, then it will kick. And if it gets caught it will freeze, almost as if it is feigning death. This all tends to work out as well as possible for the gazelle. Its body is working just right.

We, on the other hand, through a misstep in evolution, appear to be dysregulated in response to threat. This means that we can start running wildly when the lion is still miles away, or collapse in submission when we still have time to get away. We overreact and under-react. We rarely ‘Goldilocks’ react and get it just right.

Two: This changes our biochemistry

Responses to threat are like the 

I said I went to the clinic not  I think I’m demonic m

I said I love your pink jacket not I’m  tired of the panic

I said I love Dr Hicks not, I think weaving sucks.

I said I think she’s cured me, not how can she endure me?

I told them my husband was dead, not I can’t wait to get into bed

I wonder why Freud was regarded as so unusual. Doesn’t everybody think about sex all the time? And by sex I mean love in all its forms.

I tell them I want some egg and bacon,not to make a career of faking

I wanted to have a hot bath not to provoke bitter wrath.

I wanted to conceal menstruation ,not to give men an invitation

I was telling the truth ,not mending the roof

I was washing my ears not enjoying his leers not trashing the seers

I said I fell out of bed.Not, Well,now I am dead.

I said I prefer the rural life , not his alluring wife.

I said give me a rest, not you are a pest.

I said,where is my tea,not I love her knee

I asked if you had wine,not are you a swine.

I said I feel terribly tired, not you need to be rewired

I said her mother has dementia,not that she joined

Mensa

I said where’s my pink lipstick, not I am a mystic. 

I said try meditation,not grow vegetation. 

I said,Are you quite mad,not are you my dad ?

I said I need speech therapy not your hips creak terribly. 

I said are you going deaf not I’m short of breath. 

I said ,fry a few eggs not I love your legs

I said I’m feeling tight, not why are you bright?

I said my heart is full not  watch out for that bull

I said what is  the forecast not shall we commit incest?

I said let’s go to bed, not sex drives me mad.

I said I want to go to Confession not I can’t give up fascism

The priest said was I a virgin not who was the surgeon

Sure it’s not perversion? Let’s forget about conversion.

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