Phone photos have gone mental! I think it's Google who have this tech that lets you take several pictures then choose which bits of which picture you want to basically make another picture. But it doesn't have any relation to that moment! It's not real!
I think Bruce Lee was a big fan of bending like a reed in the wind, as was Hoban in Firefly and Paul Atreides😉
From what were talking about last week regarding Truth. "Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or live a lie" Miyamoto Musashi.
There is, to be honest, very little that others would call extraordinary that happens to most of us. But you are of course right about ordinary things feeling extraordinary. And it is wonderful!
I was lucky enough to read The Prophet to my mum whilst she lay dying. Of course it's the banal that sticks with me. My mum was a terrible cook but she made the most amazing Full Irish Breakfast! An ordinary thing feeling extraordinary😁
Very true about the breakfast thing... the only things my dad could really cook when I was growing up was a Full English, and Special fried rice... both of which quite ordinary dishes I love to this day :-)
Wow, didn't know about that Google photo thing, but you're right: that's not real! That didn't happen!
For me, the extraordinary ordinary is the cup of tea I make at home after a journey (where all the tea is terrible or non-existent). That's a miraculous tea. It's home, memory, nostalgia, healing, relief, all in one. And one is all it can be: the second cup is never as great as that first.
I remember a documentary about sugar addiction and ultra processed foods, saying that with each bite of the thing (whatever it is), you're forever chasing the dopamine hit you got off the first bite. But I think that's true of many other foods and drinks: always chasing the satisfaction and delight of the first mouthful. That's making me feel quite sad
On your lovely paragraph about mothers, I'm reminded of Seamus Heaney's great poem series "Clearances", in particular the one called "When All the Others Were Away at Mass", and the poet and his mother are peeling potatoes for the Sunday roast: "I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives".
Good writing - which most definitely includes your writing - stirs up my sluggish brain with a stick, helps make the synaptic connections which are my mind's delight to make.
Okay, I must read that Heaney series — that's a beautiful quote. God, those little moments.
And you're so right about the cup of tea when you get home. As a semi-professional tea drinker, I take a travel kettle and real teabags on any journey longer than a couple of days. And yet the first one you have when you're BACK... is still the miraculous one.
A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.
Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
Verse 76 of the Tao te Ching
Huh... hadn't seen that before: puts it a lot better than I did!
On 'ordinary things feeling extraordinary': fixing a nasty bug in software is up there.
This is why developers are essentially addicts.
From my own tiny experience in code way back in the day, I can absolutely believe this. Something that wasn't working... suddenly WORKING.
Phone photos have gone mental! I think it's Google who have this tech that lets you take several pictures then choose which bits of which picture you want to basically make another picture. But it doesn't have any relation to that moment! It's not real!
I think Bruce Lee was a big fan of bending like a reed in the wind, as was Hoban in Firefly and Paul Atreides😉
From what were talking about last week regarding Truth. "Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or live a lie" Miyamoto Musashi.
There is, to be honest, very little that others would call extraordinary that happens to most of us. But you are of course right about ordinary things feeling extraordinary. And it is wonderful!
I was lucky enough to read The Prophet to my mum whilst she lay dying. Of course it's the banal that sticks with me. My mum was a terrible cook but she made the most amazing Full Irish Breakfast! An ordinary thing feeling extraordinary😁
Very true about the breakfast thing... the only things my dad could really cook when I was growing up was a Full English, and Special fried rice... both of which quite ordinary dishes I love to this day :-)
Wow, didn't know about that Google photo thing, but you're right: that's not real! That didn't happen!
Well there’s a whole list of seen, right there.
Ha :-)
For me, the extraordinary ordinary is the cup of tea I make at home after a journey (where all the tea is terrible or non-existent). That's a miraculous tea. It's home, memory, nostalgia, healing, relief, all in one. And one is all it can be: the second cup is never as great as that first.
I remember a documentary about sugar addiction and ultra processed foods, saying that with each bite of the thing (whatever it is), you're forever chasing the dopamine hit you got off the first bite. But I think that's true of many other foods and drinks: always chasing the satisfaction and delight of the first mouthful. That's making me feel quite sad
On your lovely paragraph about mothers, I'm reminded of Seamus Heaney's great poem series "Clearances", in particular the one called "When All the Others Were Away at Mass", and the poet and his mother are peeling potatoes for the Sunday roast: "I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives".
Good writing - which most definitely includes your writing - stirs up my sluggish brain with a stick, helps make the synaptic connections which are my mind's delight to make.
Okay, I must read that Heaney series — that's a beautiful quote. God, those little moments.
And you're so right about the cup of tea when you get home. As a semi-professional tea drinker, I take a travel kettle and real teabags on any journey longer than a couple of days. And yet the first one you have when you're BACK... is still the miraculous one.