https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/well/move/slow-running.html
The value of slowing down
Can Writing Help Improve Your Mental Wellbeing? – A Personal Experience
We need to move
True lies say it all
My soul my mind my heart are tender friends
I’ll leave my brain behind me at the end.
A companion to grief
Near the end
Fly again tonight Sara
You’ll soon be free on this life pain.
And winter will not come again.
Fly again, fly again Sara.
Oh to be a psychopath
We can suffer mentally when we think what we have done.
Oh to be a psychopath, for they have all the fun
A touch of mania brings great joy till you lose your credit cards.
Be grateful it’s an illness with symptoms painful, hard
Are you feeling anxious because you’re worried about your job?
You might be a failure but you can still bring love
Say good morning to the old as they shuffle down the street

We like to be acknowledged as we reach the last defeat
I have half a mind
Dear teacher, John will be late for school because he has got no mind today
I have borrowed it because I have lost Annette
Dear sir my son will not be coming to school till lunchtime because I can’t afford to give him any breakfast.
We can see lectures from there university of the third age on our phones while we share a raw onion Mary
0h dear,teacher Johnny is bringing my mind into school today . Please don’t let him lose it whatever you Sara
Dear teacher, Mary is menstruating today so do not give her a piece of your mind.
She is always in the back of mine and I intend to keep it that way but you can give her some free protection before she comes Lucy
Dear sir or madam, my offspring will be late coming to school today. They can’t decide whether they need breakfast M y mind is in state of torment I can say the same thing for my body since I got anorexia Dave
Where did you find your minds this morning? Were they on your book or were you enjoying some fantasies?
It doesn’t matter as long as you have a mind of your Katherine.
To the teacher
My children will be late for school today because they have driven me out of my mind and I have no petrol to drive back.
I hope you don’t mind as they are so privileged children in the class. Remind me soon
Ian
Dear madam it is on to have my children taught by you. Would you mind if I asked you out on a date because I have got no figs in the house. Tom
No obvious signs

Do you think you’re mentally ill
0 you want a doctor to give you a pill
There are no obvious signs
On the back of your mind
I recommend writing your will
No such thing as mental illness? Critical reflections on the major ideas and legacy of Thomas Szasz
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353517/

Arguing in The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct that they are merely ‘indirect forms of communication’,1 Thomas Szasz posited that so-called mental illnesses cannot legitimately be categorised as diseases. This launched an argument that Szasz would elaborate over the course of a prolific writing career that spanned more than 50 years. Szasz repudiated psychiatry’s misappropriation of concepts such as ‘illness’, which he took to be relevant to medicine and its ‘physicalist framework’2 but not to matters of mind and human conduct. In The Myth of Mental Illness,1 after arguing that virtually any entity can have a counterfeit version, Szasz articulated his views with characteristic iconoclasm, contending that only physical illnesses are real and that mental diseases are ‘counterfeit and metaphorical illnesses’ (p. 34). Illnesses are understood, according to Szasz,3 with respect to deviation from a norm, and in the case of physical illness the norm refers to the structural or functional integrity of the body or some aspect of it. But the norm – deviation from which results in so-called mental illness – is altogether more problematic for Szasz; this
But the norm – deviation from which results in so-called mental illness – is altogether more problematic for Szasz; this norm is a ‘psychosocial and ethical one’.3 With this as the case, first, the search for a medical remedy seems poorly justified, and second, the points where diagnostic lines are drawn are bound, according to Szasz, to be somewhat arbitrary.
Szasz did not deny that humans have difficulties but he preferred to conceptualise them not as mental illnesses or as diseases, but as ‘problems in living’.1 Nor did he deny psychiatrists a role in assisting individuals with problems. Psychiatrists could have a legitimate role to play but the ideal relationship between psychiatrist and patient, for Szasz, should be based on consensual contract rather than coercion. Second, the psychiatrist cannot justifiably claim that only he
Opinion | Prolonged Grief: A Mental Disorder, or a Natural Process? – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/opinion/letters/grief-mental-disorder.html
I’m sure many people have suffered from bereavement even when they are quite young. Maybe when you are still working and you have colleagues and friends it helps you to overcome the grief. But what about how long we are allowed to grieve before we are told we are mentally ill if we have not recovered in 6 months or here
And can you recover from grief? Depends on the person and how long have you known them;if you were married for 40 years then it will take a long time to build a new life.
I don’t think you recover from grief but if you are fortunate you can learn to live with it.
It’s more painful when people close to you criticise you and say you should be over it.
Surely it’s not a moral evil to grieve for longer than some people expect you to
Nor is it sadistic. We are not wilfully inflicting pain on those around us because we can’t hide the sadness in our hearts
Why can’t we accept sorrow is a valid part of life?
I wonder if it’s hard nowadays to believe that other people are as real as we are and the way that they are feeling is not aimed at making us uncomfortable this is simply a natural condition of life at certain times. It is we who are being sadistic when we criticise people for being sad
What is the difference between malice and envy? | WikiDiff
Watery grief

Withheld tears may swell the throat and heart.
Journeying into grief without a chart
Swollen eyes make vision tender blurred
Worst of all is when it can’t be shared l
Oh lonely grief a sword will pierce the heart
Take me in your arms and let tears start
An Upside to Envy, and a New Reason for That Commandment – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11tierney.html

Traditionally, envy is linked with the eyes,” Dr. Smith said, noting that the word comes from the Latin “invidere,” which mean to look at with malice, or cast an “evil eye.” Just as an invidious comparison is by definition bad, so is envy defined by some psychological researchers to be inherently malign.
How Extreme Heat Can Influence Mood and Mental Health – The New York Times
You Can Be Homesick at Home – The New York Times
NYTimes: The Upside of Envy
The Upside of Envy https://nyti.ms/2FLaNXE

At therapist with some 30 years of experience recently confided to me that of all the themes his clients found difficult to delve into — sex included — there was no tougher nut to crack than envy. Aristotle described envy not as benign desire for what someone else possesses but “as the pain caused by the good fortune of others.” Not surprisingly these pangs often give way to a feeling of malice. Witness the fact that throughout history and across cultures, anyone who enjoyed a piece of good fortune feared and set up defenses against the “evil eye.” Of course, there is not much talk today about the evil eye, at least not in the West, but it surely isn’t because we are less prone to envy than our ancestors.
In his essay “On Envy,” the philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, “Of all other affections, it is the most importune and continual. For of other affections there is occasion given but now and then; and therefore it was well said, ‘Invidia festos dies non agit.’ ” That is, “Envy keeps no holidays.”
A
Justice for all
To make A levels a true measure of achievement not linked to the relative wealth of the family all children in the United Kingdom and their parents at birth and brought up in large each class will contain equal numbers of children from the rich and the poor and some from the middle and in this way all the children will be equal especially in terms of their diet
It will be easy to see when they reach 18 which ones are are able to do the most brilliant work such as working out percentages, compound interest, reading Enid blyton, passing grade 1 on the piano and be able to fry bacon
This seems to indicate that the people who are sorted this clown are actually stupid.
Working out percentages anybody could do that and ask for compound interest with the economy in the condition it’s in even simple interest will be very soon.
Thank you Liz truss for contributing to a programme on “am I a genius?”
All punctuation chosen by batman
They will love the cold air
Gaelic its never die quote says it all
And if you don’t remember
Because you were not appalledq
Remember the people who were treated like pigs or even weeds
Their deaths were nothing to remember
Because we’ve seen it all so many times before
What is the saying about the Jews?
Why did you lie?I went to
sleep in I guess the gas chamber, the chamber of horrors
But we’re not in a fairground we’re in real life
Hi we’re going to die of Cold
That monster on horseback followed by 1000 polar bears
They will feast on the dead British and put the electricity company out of business
Even winter air is warm to them
They will become the royal family
And we will not need a parliament
A parliament of polar bears; it’s better than one of fools
How to make yourself better in health and mind.
Some recent discoveries might help you you with getting older feeling depressed or being excessively bored
If you live in a house which is old and the wiring is old don’t worry about getting electric shocks because it’s been proved that getting mild electric shocks can make it less likely for you to develop dementia. You will just have to hope that the shock you get from your ancient wiring it’s not enough to do you serious harm.
If you survive congratulate yourself because your brain is now less likely to deteriorate.
You remember the quotation
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I don’t know to whom as a tribute
Next, we know that children who grow up on farms have a better immune system than children raised in town So it would it be a good idea to let your home become rather dirty
I remember in Thomas Hardy s novel Far from the madding crowd that a man drops his sandwich on the floor of the public house then picks it up up.and eats it saying
It’s only clean dirt
A Vertical Art and The Owl and the Nightingale by Simon Armitage | Review
Hostility is bad for you
Hostility and loneliness combined
Will crucify the heart and mind
I read this somewhere and I wonder if it’s the hostility towards others which makes us lonely rather than reminisce which makes us hostile
Thunder
In the humid night the thunder boomed
I saw the lightning flash across the room
I should have let it strike me in the heart
To rescue me from love and also its darts
Feet in sea edge
In a cotton dress by Morecambe Bay
On Arnside’s little beach below the Knott
I stand where sea and sand on my feet play
My feet enjoy the water, ripples,rays
I remember this, the waters fret
In a cotton dress in Morecambe Bay
We see the Barrow Train, the River flows
Feel the pebbles slippery,cool and wet
I stand where sea and sand on my feet play
As the sun sank, Grange and Cartmel glowed
The Priory’s ruins paid all beauty’s debt
I love my dress, in sun, in Morecambe Bay
My bony feet look thin, the water sways
I wish I could dissolve,skin holds me back
I stand where sea and sand on my feet play
Moments of great beauty guard the track
We may forget the sea shells splintered wrack.
In a cotton dress my mother made
I loved where sea and sand on my feet played
Tact

I once had a doctor called Kumar .
I valued his skill and his humour
He had not got much tact
To be exact
He said is that your head or a tumour?
How to Be Happy – Well Guides – The New York Times
Distinctions, Useful and Otherwise – Arrant Pedantry
https://www.arrantpedantry.com/2011/12/06/distinctions-useful-and-otherwise/
Thinking about language is very interesting pp

New rules of language in the internet age
Can Anyone Learn to Draw? Yes! (If You Approach it The Right Way)
The Right Way to Say ‘I’m Sorry’
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/well/mind/the-right-way-to-say-im-sorry.html
T
In the very first chapter of her new book, “Why Won’t You Apologize?,” Dr. Lerner points out that apologies followed by rationalizations are “never satisfying” and can even be harmful.
“When ‘but’ is tagged on to an apology,” she wrote, it’s an excuse that counters the sincerity of the original message. The best apologies are short and don’t include explanations that can undo them.
Nor should a request





