Plato on drugs? I don’t believe it;I do believe it

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http://becomingintegral.com/2013/09/19/was-plato-on-drugs/t

This is not a book but a blog.It’s really fascinating.not just th above article but for all its other thoughtful

discussions.If you are not a philosopher still many pieces are understandable to the general reader.

How to Be Better at Stress – Well Guides – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/how-to-deal-with-stress

It’s all good

Changing your perception

With stress, the mind and the body are intrinsically linked. You can view stress as something that is wreaking havoc on your body (and it can) or as something that is giving you the strength and energy to overcome adversity. Here’s a quick way to think about these two very different views of stress. Read the statement, and then think about your own reaction 

How even the best writers are affected by bad reviews

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I have mentioned that I very much liked the writer Kenneth Gergen and especially his book,” The saturated society”

http://identitythoughts.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-saturated-self-dilemmas-of-identity-in-contemporary-life-kenneth-j-gergen-pt-2/

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/553/1198e”

I think it’s  beautifully written and explains the bad side of post modernism but also how differently it could be used.He got a very good review on the Washington Post but later got a terrible one in the NYT.In an interview he told how this affected him badly until the man who wrote the review died ten years later,I’ll put a link in here later.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SweMLEe6TpgC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=kenneth+gergen+the+saturated+self++washington+post+review&source=bl&ots=_lKF4I_lVi&sig=VEbgQl1ZpIwcLgfw3S5M5sI9__U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JJ_VUtfLEeaP7AaviYHwCA&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=kenneth%20gergen%20the%20saturated%20self%20%20washington%20post%20review&f=false.

!He used to wake up at night with thoughts of what he’s like to do to this person.This shows how even someone of high quality can be wounded easily/

Most people who read English novels have heard of Virginia Woolf. She was highly acclaimed yet had breakdowns whilst awaiting reviews .Eventually she committed suicide during WW2.Her husband was Jewish and she was afraid of what would happen if the Germans invaded Britain.

But her mental health was fragile after losing her mother and favourite older sister in her teens and also possibly being sexually assaulted by her half brother.Despite al this she had  much happiness and is one  of the most highly acclaimed women writers of the 20th century…not much good  to her of course

Sylvia Plath a great poet  a generation after Woolf also committed suicide and later became known as one of the best poets of our time

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/18/writers-who-suffered-from-the-sylvia-plath-effect/#!scilW

Would you like to be a tormented genius and enter the literary canon or just be an ordinary,moderately happy person? Most of us are not so gifted in any case.

Some of us believe that others with more gifts,more money,more winning personalities are much happier,but it’s not true.Many geniuses are troubled.

On the other hand being troubled by itself will not make you a genius,alas.Everybody is troubled at times.Sometimes a poet may use it

Paul Tillich and I: The Courage To Be

Paul Tillich photo

Tillich 1You know this experience, sometimes when you are browsing in a bookshop you come across a book with a wonderful title. This happened to me as  student when I saw a book with this title:

“The courage to be ”

by Paul Tillich

I was going through a hard time and just the title alone helped me as no one I knew had ever said it takes courage to live well.So I bought this book and dipped in. I found it interesting and thoughtful.Sometimes I would just look at the front cover and repeat the title.I had discovered mantra meditation.in a sense.

This morning I was listening to a radio programme  about poetry in England and tidying up. Suddenly my old battered copy fell out of a shelf and into my hand.And I said, thank you. Because I had  lost this companion and now it’s restored to me when I need again to say the words to help me in a personal crisis.

The Courage to Be

And to recognise the power of words on the human mind and thus to take care of  self and others and what we say to them for they too are struggling humans as we ourselves are.

And to discover virtue is not faux piety which suddenly reminded me that Tillich had a weakness for women. He was no plaster saint. I am not saying. I approve.

Had he stayed in Germany he would no doubt have been imprisoned even killed like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.He would not have been silent

Books… they save lives. I was so grateful and still am for education, books, people who talk to me .Had I lived a few years earlier it would have been different.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/595850/Paul-Tillich/7266/Development-of-his-philosophy

Tillich was expelled from Germany in 1933,the first non-Jewish theologian to have this honor bestowed on him.I never saw him but I love him for his writing.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.
Paul Tillich
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/paul_tillich.html#y15kkZigwdviBd76.99

Levinas,books etc

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I have received several books now written by or about Levinas.As you guess,they are quite hard so my time is taken up reading.The most hopeful one,The          Cambridge Guide,is not here yet.but I think it will be more understandable than the others to an ignorant person like myself. I am unsure what I’ve done but this  is coming out very much to one side so I shall just say.Hello and continue with my studies.I like this shy lion picture.

PS.Just got the Cambridge Guide and it looks quite approachable.

A new author for me:Kenneth Gergen

Gergen faceGergen

Ihave been reading his earlier book,The Saturated Society which I also strongly recommend.I found it good reading and I now know what post modernism  is about for better or worse.He can be very funny too When trlating his personal experiences.If you can get these from your library you will be intrigued.And his prose is great too.

I am learning so much.

A plunesh bull in a kitch
A plunesh bull in a kitch

wittgenstein

And laughing too

I’m finding Derrida de-structured

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I’m finding Derrida  de-structured

And Levinas‘ face makes me smile

Who would have conjectured

That one day I’d lecture

On  thoughfullness and all its trials?

I  prefer Kierkegaard to Sartre

Who sometimes makes me feel queer.

Who would have expected

That words would be texted

As men smoked cigarettes and drank beer?

Some people like reading Jane Austen

While others juggle with Wittgensein.

Who would have discarded

The notes in the margins?

How sweetly these words recombine

LITERARY OR POPULAR FICTION?

political-pictures-darth-vader-blasphemy-style

This  is  verygood.[I was just practising how to do a lnk there!I am  not fully trained in editing.]
This is an interesting article about the difference between literary and popular fiction.I have written a few short stories but always wanted to write a novel.
I love Nicholas Freeling.His  novels are written as detective stories but they qualify as literary fiction.I especially like,Dresden Green.
You can get a full  list of his novels via the link above.I shall be mulling over the thought of writing this weekend and looking a people walking by as I stroll along.
Why do we women wear such clothes?Why is “feminine” a bad word… like flowered dresses?How can one reconcile feminism with femininity?We don’t all want abortions like Simone de Beauvoir.
The other day I wore a dress and my partner said,Auntie E!
Not a compliment is it?I was wondering how good my imagination is.It’s based on experience

Wholly writ:The New Termagants

A friend  has written this  long thin list on another blog site and gave me permission to use it.

political-pictures-darth-vader-blasphemy-style

See this blog!       [ http://funnypicturesfreehd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/funny-%5Dreligious-pictures.html

List

Hospitals.
Love you
Have you?
In the park
Remark
Look
A book
A scone
Gone!
Tact
In fact
Rolling Thistles
Howls and whistles
Numinous
Humorous
Voluminous
Labyrinthian
My relations
Migrations
No pleasin’ ’em
Never again
When?
Oh,then!
Squeezing ’em
The Glossy Ones-
The Flossy Ones
Philharmonia
New harmonia
Pneumonia
Wrestle only with men
Angels exempt.
So he dreamt
Tremble only again
Amen
Arrythmia
Dysthmia
As dim as he.
Limbs run free
Pleats
Fill ’em in
Drill and bin
Non Brawling Thistles
He grows
Neighbours
The Remains
The Fast trains
Delete her
Pleat the heater
Neater
Done
Fun
A verb
Parse a sentence on him
Lewd when viewed
Very rude
Devaluation
No Fears while your relations are on.
Dissertations
Misinterpretations
Theses
In pieces
Martin Who There?

The Bitch in the House [Paperback] Cathi Hannauer (Author)

Georgee eliotFrancine prose3

 

I said I would write about at the weekend but I felt it more urgent to reconstruct the blog as I had wandered away from my intentions.This book  is very interesting,It contains stories from a number of women in the USA about their lives.I am unsure who chose the title as my mother would have fainted to hear this name!But in truth one contributor says that she is very nice at work and a demon to her family..S he has a very high powered job.I myself find it odd that feminism means women must work  in paid job now even when they have babies.Alas house prices have risen to match and so it’s really tough.Other stories are not so harsh.The one I was moved by was written by a woman who happens to be overweight.She tells her story very well.And what a life she has had.It’s worth getting just for that.And it’s only 1p on Amazon. Some stories seem like ones from the dawn of time.. a couple meet.At last she has found her ideal man.And so he continues until they drive off for the honeymoon and as they approach a big Freeway junction he begins to shout and yell because she is not telling him which road is the right one!And he never even gave her a map/road atlas.So married life began with a shock of horror…

I myself love books like this that a bit like a blog tell a story of another woman’s life/The stories are too short really… but it’s a gripping read.A very good variety of different lives,different kinds of relationship and the toughness of educating yourself when you are poor and possibly black too

Sleep with Shakespeare

It seemed a good idea at the time.But the timing was wrong.Shakespeare was my boyfriend’s friend.To be honest he was a cat.So to preserve my modesty I slept with the cat and not the boyfriend.Just another natural disaster in every day life.

Still,a cat has eyes unlike a flea which is what I sleep with now;I know only because it bites me in the night!Possibly it was from the cat and became a multitude like my sins .which are mainly of omission.A  few are cultivated and the rest grew like weeds.I feel such shame when I think of my life,sleeping with everything but  a human being. Intimacy with moths does not contribute to literature or any other human undertaking and yet it saved a man from torment loving a woman with such a strange personality.So that is good.I also wrote a few plays

A midsummer night’s scream.

Julius seized me.

Richard the Blurred

King Fear

MacDuff,the pudding

Hamrent

Hamerous

Hams of old England.

Nymphs and Leopards.

Liebscreamsche

Nietzsche’s word was my father.

Who won the Bore?

England’s screaming peasants blend

Death ,where is thy King?

Foreigner’a rile us.

Boldlock the beloved

I  made a few dollars selling myself to  an owl.Beyond that my life is herstory.

Can I get bail?I hope the judge is  lenient

Reading like a writer

“I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.”
Francine Prose, Reading Like a : A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

This book is fascinating whether or not you are writer

Discover Francine Prose and what she reads

Francine prose

Francine prose3francine-prose 2

I greatly like the writer  Francine Prose and just read an interview witth her.And secondly I found a piece where she talks about her favorite books.I looked at her images on Google Image because I like faces.There are lots of photos of her at different ages and in different moods.I think she has a fascinating face.And mind