A Negative Freedom: Thirteen Poets on Formal Verse

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-negative-freedom-thirteen-poets-on-formal-verse/

Among the many reasons poets choose to write formal poetry in the 21st century is an intuitive distaste for the imitative fallacy. To write about chaos, one need not write chaotically. It’s only a minor paradox to say that discipline and constraint unlock freedom. Steele goes on to say that form-minded poets are assumed to believe that “the universe is a nice, neat, orderly place.” On the contrary, he says:

I suspect that most people who write in forms feel that the obvious disorder and chaos of the world afflict us intensely, coming 

Envious feelings

Envious feelings damage our own heart

Do not feed the soil in which they grow

Peace and love and beauty will depart

Do not put the horse behind the cart

Do not turn a friend into a foe

Envious feelings damage our own hearts

For peace and love and beauty will depart

Like the snail it’s better to be low

Do not be a vulture be a larka

Little buds of sin grow into sharks

Do not injure others with your blows

unless you are a dog you should not bark

when we enjoy others let’s be glad

there is no need to act when you are sad

comparing and contrasting ruined our hearts

Find the right connections when you start

Learning to Be Creative Despite Mental Illness – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/27/nyregion/l-learning-to-be-creative-despite-mental-illness-302929.html

health club, we are graced with a dentist and a lawyer. You do not have to be a doctor or lawyer or prime minister to be creative, but you can be one of them and still have mental illness.

There is one possibility where those of us with mental illness can create. By working on ourselves to establish a personality so strong, we can go out in the mainstream of our communities and get a job. The reason for our work order day is to aid us in reaching this goal. To turn mental illness around is creative, to my way of thinking.

No, we are not Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh or Herman Melville, or Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf and Robert Lowell. All of these creators are thought by researchers to have suffered just as we do with mental illness. We are not famous. We are not even creative in the customary sense of the word. But we can (and some of us do) mold ourselves into an improved person. This may not seem creative to the outside world in the usual sense of the word. But to my way of thinking, it is

Be mindful of

When people condemn mindless acts of violence does it mean that they would say that mindful excellent violence?

Or what about mindless acts of gentleness?

I like that I like it very much.

Let gentlest be our word of the week.

And let’s not lose our minds about Putin

Conflict with Friends, Relationship Blindness, and the Pathway to Adult Disagreeableness

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4415380/

However, self-perceptions may not be ideal for understanding how disagreeable youth interact within close relationships, as these youth in many instances might not even know that they are acting in a disagreeable manner. Observations are useful for addressing this shortcoming and have been used to understand the enduring qualities of interaction-styles, particularly when trying to understand unique profiles across individuals. Further, understanding the interactional style in adolescence that lead to an enduring disagreeable personality-type has tremendous usefulness.

The current study utilized observational, multi-reporter data collected over a 10-year span to identify and track the development and relationships of disagreeable youth (see Figure 1 for conceptual overview). Observations of target youth and their friends at age 14 and 15 were used to assess early adolescent disagreeableness in terms of rudeness, lack of cooperation, and forcefulness. In order to track the relationship blindness of these disagreeable youth, reports from friends in middle adolescence and from romantic partners in 

How to Nurse a Vulnerability Hangover – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/well/mind/vulnerability-hangover-shame-spiral.html

In early August, at a tiki bar in Washington, D.C., Erin Pedati told a group of friends that she’d been struggling with depression. They were good friends, and they responded with empathy and compassion, but the next day Ms. Pedati, 40, felt weird.

“Part of me was relieved, because it’s important to have these discussions,” she said. “But another part was like, ‘Oh my god, what did I say?’ You replay the conversation in your head and you’re like, ‘They haven’t replied to my text, did I tell them too much?’”

Instead of a hangover from too many Mai Tais — “which honestly would’ve been easier to treat,” she joked — Ms. Pedati was experiencing a “vulnerability hangover,” a term coined by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, to describe the anxiety, shame and regret felt after divulging something personal.

Relaxing Is a Skill. Here’s How to Do It.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/relaxing-muscles-skills.html

And I learned that doing so regularly, once or several times a day, can be more or less instantly life changing. For me, deliberate muscle relaxation immediately reduces fatigue, stress and anxiety. It creates a kind of allover refreshed feeling that can be attained nearly anywhere and at any time. And it gets more effective the more I do it.

I have come to think of relaxation as a skill; the more I relax, the better I learn which parts of my body tend to become tense, what that tension feels like and how to unlock that tension with a quick flick of the mind.

‘We need to find our kin, people who speak the same language’: the power of shared grief, from Covid to the Queen

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/18/it-puts-you-in-touch-with-your-own-losses-the-power-of-collective-grief-from-the-queen-to-george-floyd-to-covid?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

How to Daydream

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/how-to-daydream.html

Health Concerns:

Daydreaming is contagious. All traffic jams are a result of one person daydreaming, which spreads from car to car. “Do you want me to stab you in your lungs right here on this highway?” is a phrase closely associated with daydream pandemics, which typically occur when two lanes are merging near construction sites.

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What to Daydream:

“I want to daydream more, but I don’t know what to daydream about,” a lot of people probably say. For that reason, they keep rehashing the same old daydream scenarios:

THE LOTTERY You aren’t going to win the lottery. Stop fantasizing about the cars you’ll buy, the vacations you’ll take, the house you’ll build. Stop imagining quitting your job, the speech you’ll make while systematically destroying office property. You wouldn’t have the guts to do that even if you did win, which you most certainly will not. What you need to be doing is daydreaming about better ways to do your current job. If you weren’t spending so much time incorrectly daydreaming, you’d probably have earned that promotion by now.

SEX By all means, have sexual fantasies. Sleep with better-looking people. Have intercourse in trees. But under no circumstances should you daydream about fornicating with nearby co-workers. Colleagues can tell when you’ve been daydreaming about having sex with them, and it’s an unprofessional way to spend company time. Some whiz kid is probably months away from inventing an app that can decipher whether you’re fantasizing about co-workers, or whether you’re just fantasizing about normal people who will never have sex with you.

CELEBRITIES Stop it already. Celebrity cameos are just the kind of infantile escapism that gives daydreaming a bad rap. “I bet George Clooney and Brad Pitt and I would have a great time on a cross-country road trip,” you might have daydreamed. Well, they wouldn’t. They would be totally freaked out that you’re sitting around daydreaming about driving them around the country when you’re supposed to be working.

HEROICS This is a tricky area of daydream ethics. Society needs everyday heroes, but most heroic daydreams are about scoring the winning touchdown, or hitting the home run. If the daydream is not sports-related, it’s terrorist-related — tackling the suicide bomber, defeating a terrorist cell in a shootout using your iPhone Call of Duty training. But no one daydreams about donating blood, or volunteering for Meals on Wheels. We’re a nation of extremes and it’s infected our daydreams.

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Efficient Daydreaming:

Daydreaming about being a better person, or positive things happening to loved ones, or flying through the office on a dragon that thinks one of your co-workers has stolen her dragon things — these are all dynamic mental breaks that can prepare you for an afternoon of cheerfully cleaning lint out of your keyboard. To become an efficient daydreamer, you needn’t dwell on quantum mechanics or solve complex algorithms; you simply need to blow off a little steam so you don’t get overstressed and have a nervous breakdown in front of your computer screen.

What type of fast food will the aliens prefer when they arrive and will it be the ultimate undoing of their civilization? If you were living in a world of all puppets, could you just assume you would be in charge because you’d be smarter and stronger and all fleshy? Or would you be ridiculed because of your minority non-puppet status? What if someone invents a machine that can read trees’ thoughts, and it turns out they spend the day laughing at us? These are some solid, intellectual quandaries for your next daydreaming stint.

Conclusion:

In closing, do not daydream about the problems in your life, the evil in the world, the troubles around the next bend. That is what real life is for. Instead, daydream about things that make you smile. No summer workday is complete without a grown person staring at the wall, just laughing.

Jon Methven is the author of the novel “This Is Your Captain Speaking.”

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JUMBLES COUNTRY PARK (Bolton) – All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187053-d212240-Reviews-Jumbles_Country_Park-Bolton_Greater_Manchester_England.html#/media-atf/212240/350363204:p/?albumid=-160&type=0&category=-160

LEARNING HOW TO RELAX WITHOUT GUILT – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/02/nyregion/learning-how-to-relax-without-guilt.html

improve these archived versions.

WHY do I always feel guilty when I’m not doing anything? I mean, what’s the big deal? The cat sits around all day and never lifts a paw, yet I feel like a degenerate when I’m idle. Maybe the cat has a better analyst. Who knows. But me, I’m like a kid caught robbing the cookie jar.

My friend Sheila sits for hours devouring the soaps, while curtains are still packed away from her move six months ago. I get nervous if the 4:30 movie sounds inviting. And what about Ginger who, behind closed doors, daily from 2 to 3, hums her mantra, totally relaxes her body and soul, and emerges as if she’s had a 10-hour nap. I tried that once, but found it difficult writing my grocery list in the lotus position. Then there’s Pam, who takes one day off every other month, her ”sick and tired time,” she calls it, just to laze, read Redbook and sip tea. She unplugs the phone, puts on her robe and really gets into relaxing.

How I’d love to get into relaxing! What’s wrong with me? I don’t think I was born this way. Looking back, there were no great traumas in my childhood warranting this aversion to loafing. Just where along the way did I pick up the guilties? Was it the occasional prod by Mom that ”idle hands are the devil’s tools”? Or could it be because I always finished my chores faster and seemed to be sitting around all the time, and Mom would say, ”How can you just sit there while your sister does all the work?”

Maybe it’s because over the years, two bosses have trained me to keep busy. Even when I have a minute’s breather, there are always those folders with little notes attached like, ”for your spare time,” or ”when you have nothing to do,” or ”leisure

The benefits of solitude

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/well/live/solitude-benefit-mental-health-advice.html

It’s a relief to be out on the island,” Ms. Snowman, 70, said. When she’s by herself, “the wheels stop spinning.” Her time alone is restorative.

But not everyone feels the same way about solitude, and for the last two years, the pandemic has forced some version of it upon us all. We’ve seen fewer friends and spent more time at home. Some people have found themselves feeling lonelier, particularly if they were already single or living alone.

As we enter a new phase of the pandemic that’s less “wipe down your groceries” and more “welp, I guess this is our new normal,” occasional periods of isolation may be something we just fold into our lives, like digital vaccination cards or having a dedicated drawer for masks.

Whether you’re hoping for more time alone or less these days, solitude is something you can learn to appreciate.

Understanding the power of friendship | happiness.com

https://www.happiness.com/magazine/relationships/happy-friendship-day-the-power-of-friendship/#

ZZ g

riendships are a powerful aid in maintaining both mental and physical health, as well as our happiness. Dee Marques explores why nurturing friends throughout our life is essential to our well-being – understand the science-backed power of friendship. 


A few weeks ago I met a 97-year-old lady and asked h

The power of friendship

https://thegrowtheq.com/the-incredible-power-of-friendship/

GSo many of the digital devices that supposedly connect us are leaving many of us, myself included, feeling a bit lonely. Yes, it’s true that email, text messaging, and social media can be enjoyable and beneficial, and that they can spawn wonderful relationships. (I met the coauthor of my book on Twitter — really.) But although they may offer the illusion of doing so, online relationships simply cannot replace real, live, in-person connection. There’s just something special and irreplaceable about being physically present with another human being. And no, there’s not — and I can’t imagine there ever will be — an app for that.

The scientific literature offers plenty of insight on what close friends do for us.They give us confidence and bolster our sense of self, especially during tough times. They increase our sense of purpose and belonging. And they significantly influence some of our most important behaviors. Studies have found that if you have a friend who becomes obese you are 57 percent more likely to become obese; if you have a friend who quits smoking you become 36 percent less likely to start lighting

How can it be?

How can it be that he is never here?
How can it be I do not hear that voice
His presence haunts from his old ,battered chair

Though I have money and no need unbare
I feel the grief , the affect of his choice.
How can it be that he is never here?

What is the world when loss turns to despair.
When every sheet by weeping is made moist?
His presence haunts from his beloved chair

Now we learn the symbol of the hare
Unpeaceful, hunted, jugged or potted roast
How can it be that he was ever here?

Into the real we stand and long time stare
We’re begging, blaming,badgered and then gassed
His presence feints with ours in death’s own lairs

Now the world of man has long surpassed
The time we could blame God for what we‘ve missed
How can it be that He is never here?
His absence haunts , symbolic , suffered, real

Opinion | What John Donne Knew About Death Can Teach Us a Lot About Life – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/opinion/john-donne-death.html

The power of John Donne’s words nearly killed a man.

It was the spring of 1623, on the morning of Ascension Day, and Donne, long a struggling poet, had finally secured for himself celebrity, fortune and a captive audience. He had been appointed dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral two years before. He was 51, slim and amply bearded, and his preaching was famous across the whole of London. His congregation — merchants, aristocrats, actors in elaborate ruffs, the whole of the city’s elite — came to his sermons. Some carried paper and ink to write down his finest passages and take them home to relish and dissect them. Donne often wept in the pulpit, in joy and in sorrow, and his audience would weep with him.

That morning he was not preaching in his own church but 

So You Want to Be a Blogging Star? – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/technology/personaltech/20basics.html

Near my home this cherry blossom is Eddie like

Kindness covered me on that dark night.

Then I knew the meanings of this pain

I must get up yes I must walk again

Without a compass map or any guide

The darkness my companion as I strive

The golden light was love but also fear

We are never lost if we are dear ear

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Wrapped in your  smile ,O golden light

Wrapped in your smile,I saw the golden light
As if a hidden world our love revealed .
Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight

In that space, our worries did not bite
The trees were shelter, losses were each healed
Wrapped in your holy smile,I saw the light

Do you learn there is a second sight
From heart and soul , the golden bells shall peal
Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly

And who but you would see my inner plight
Would know the false from what is right and real
Wrapped in your smile,I felt warm golden light

No army with its metal and its might
Can win the final war , love conquers steel
As spirits touch ,as sorrows say goodbye

I know it’s hard to learn what others feel
And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed
Wrapped in your holy smile ,O golden light
Our spirits touch, our eyes weep their delight