Tag Archives: reality

To blog or not to blog?

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Creative writing brings me joy. I love to have pen in hand, a blank page, and to freewheel across the page. Later I transfer this into digital format.

I’ve been blogging since 2008 and journalling since about 1996 when I applied myself to writing Morning Pages as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. I ditch most of the journals because they are full of whingey personal crap where I sort out the problems of my mind.

But when I look back over the blog archive, I think it is a personal account rich in images, metaphor, questions, ideas, and experiences.

But the online landscape has changed and over these recent years it has been overrun with scammers, hackers, criminals, loud opinionators, and stupid promotions and ads for companies and organisations. No, I don’t want to buy your idiotic product or join your ”woke” cause!

Fortunately, there are still some authentic, peaceful souls brave enough to continue to post beautiful pieces: Rich Roll, Isabel Paige, Valerie Lin, Rip Esselstyn, and others.

Lately I’ve been considering closing down this blog. I want to minimize the risk imposed by hackers and scammers. I loathe the barrage of fake emails, clickbait articles, catastrophized news, and petty advertising. I don’t want to feed the hungry phantom of the negative online world, or AI for that matter.

So maybe this is it? What do you think? See you on the outside?

Dream

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When we think about the topic of dreams we can go in two ways: the dreams we have when we are asleep; or the dreams we have when we are awake.

The dreams of our sleep consciousness tend towards the surreal that can stir our emotions in all of their complexity. We know they are not real. and have no control over them. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a perfect example of a weird dream. Psychologists try to interpret dreams in an attempt to know the human psyche. Books on this subject vary from superficial to a far deeper enquiry. The work of Sigmund Freud and Jung has led this field.

The dreams of our waking hours are what interest me. What are they? How do we cultivate them? Why are they important? This stream of enquiry reveals our hopes, desires, inspirations, and what we do in order to bring them into reality. There are many authors who choose this topic as their mainstay of material, and there continues to be a hungry readership for this work as it continues to sell well and often. I immediately think of Deepak Chopra, Joseph Campbell, and Wayne Dyer. Their books serve to inspire us, instil the notion of possibility, and show us practical steps that we will make our dreams our reality.

A whole army of self-appointed gurus have followed this trend and spruik the message of self-actualisation. If it works then why do we need to keep hearing it? I suppose that our daily routines bring us back to reality. The bills need to be paid. Our employed work might not be fulfilling. Our personal life might be challenging and/or in disarray. So our dreams get a back seat. We remind ourselves that “one day” we will be able to realise that dream. One day…

In the meantime we can read those books that maintain our dreams. That trip to France, the time to paint, the space to develop, the freedom to find stillness or creativity, that yacht to go sailing off into the sunrise untethered.

Whatever your dream might be the local library is the place to go to fuel your passion. @love2read #NYR12  National Year of Reading 2012.