Hurt So Good

Hurt So Good was written for all the martyrs out there.

Of which I have been one, for sure.

I speak not of literal martyr’s dying for literal causes. No. I’m referring to the tenuous and, to be honest, tiresome pursuit of suffering more than everybody else in regard to the creation of one’s art.

M-art-yrs in our own heids.

Not that any of this is necessarily pretentious, though it can ferment an attitude which always teeters on the edge of such a tendency. But it also can be a very genuine and sincere attempt to do things in the right way.

Like the song I wrote about it, in which I am solemnly trying to give myself a break.

”Today you be kind to yourself”.

The present me holds all of this creative stuff a lot more lightly. Less angst more … perchance to dream. Or something.

Here’s to the death of dying for our artistic endeavours.

Old England

Today’s Sunday song comes courtesy of Dom Joly in his book The Hezbollah Hiking Club. It tells of his mini pilgrimage involving a walk through Lebanon with two friends. Today he is passing through the town of Baalbek, which was the home of Hezbollah there. And then he hears a song from out of nowhere -

“One of my favourite songs of all time … the lyrics stopped me dead in my tracks … God, what a song”.

I’ve never listened to Old England by The Waterboys before. But when such a whole hearted recommendation is heard, it would be daft not to put that oversight to bed. So I did. A powerful tune.

ps. I once had a practise session for a gig in a rehearsal room at The Barrowlands in Glasgow. The Waterboys were just up the hall rehearsing for theirs at the same time. Aah, those small, sweet, slightly sad claims to fame… :-)

Frequent Disapproval

I frequently disapprove of things. Like you I don’t intend to. It just pops up on a regular basis. Something I’m not keen on. A preference for that thing not to be a thing. Very occasionally, it’s not a mere thing. It’s an actual person. But let’s not go there.

So yes, I’m a fully paid up frequent disapprover. And who knows? If I know you I may have even disapproved of something you have done or said at some point. Sorry.

We can’t choose our preferences. But at the end of the day, those preferences make absolutely no difference to the fabric of reality. Because the reality is that even when one thing I disapprove off disappears - and every single one of them will, soon or later - another will pop up to replace it.

It won’t be my disapproval that displaces anything though. Because all “The Disapproved” have an independent existence and cannot be touched by my preferences. They disappear, because that is the nature of life.

What do I learn from this?

One thing is that I can’t kill off anything by not liking it.

But also … and this is a useful tip for all of us who happen to make ourselves vulnerable and put something of ourselves “out there” in the wider world for everyone to see:

- Disapproval, even Frequent Disapproval , cannot kill us either. It just can’t. Despite the message of the accompanying tune.

All I Wanna Do (Wanna Dance)

“All I Wanna Do (Wanna Dance)”.

No not really. Still recuperating. But I’m looking forward to that moment when I hear a beat … and the old foot starts tappin’, the hips start wigglin’, and I’m boppin’ and a jivin’ like a mad thing in a bull ring.

Obviously none of that will be happening where anyone can see. It’ll just be me. In the front room.

Feel free to imagine that moment.

In the meantime, let me leave you with a quote from Robert Sapolsky, who studied baboons for twenty years. As you do. I found it very uplifting to the soul for some odd reason. My foot twitched.

And yours may too. Or it may not. It’s damn hard to know sometimes.

”For a male baboon, attaining high rank is all about muscles, sharp canines, and winning the right fight. But maintaining high rank is about avoiding fights, having the self control to ignore provocations, avoiding fighting by being psychologically intimidating, being a sufficiently self-disciplined, stable coalition partner to always have someone watching your back. An alpha male who is constantly fighting won’t be in the corner office long; successful alphaship is a minimalist art of nonwar.”

Angels For Today

I been ill these last few days. First day of surfacing properly. So that’s why.

Energy is low though.

I’m on go slow.

So … my Angels For Today are:

- Eating an orange in the almost springtime sun without rushing.
- Enjoying having some energy instead of almost none.
- Being grateful that I’m able to rest. Not everybody gets the chance.

Be Still (My Beating Heart)

I will move, the world will move. Nothing will stay the same.

But in the midst of it all … Be Still (My Beating Heart).

Stillness in the midst of Life. That’s a destination which can potentially, and paradoxically, travel with me.

If I let it.

Devotion

“To the sky, to the ocean”.
To Aberdeen.
I like travelling, and it’s lucky that I need to do it fairly often.
Even the most predictable journey has its surprises.
My Devotion is not to the destination.
It’s to the experience.

But is has to be said, that today’s destination is one of very favourite.

I’m meeting a new grandson for the first time. Swoon.

But still, there’s a journey to enjoy.

Table Mountain

The wee mouse had snuck in.
The cat was not on the mat. Or anywhere else.
And that wee mouse knew exactly where she was heading.
She was heading to the very top
Of Table Mountain.

They were a messy family, The Frees.
Apart from Mrs. Free of course. But she was away.
And Mandy Mouse knew
That upon that wooden summit
Would lie a feast fit for a queen.
Crumbs, and rice grains, and who knew what other sumptuous offerings?

And so she began.
First springing easily up the two wooden steps
That led to base camp.
Then the hard part.

She dug in with her wee claws to those old table legs
And slowly pulled herself up the necessary foot and a half
Hanging on when one or other leg lost it’s grip
Until she reached the dangling corner of the table cloth.

This bit was very awkward.
She had to make a little leap out and backwards
From her precarious position on the leg
To grab hold of the hanging cotton.

But she managed it skilfully.
And then it was fairly easy to get to the table top itself
By clever use of toes slightly nipping into the old cloth.

And thus she reached, without too much fuss, her Nirvana. She’d made it.

Peaking over the top she looked to see what joys awaited her.

But …. oh no!
There appeared to be no initial sign of food at all.
Surely not?
She quickly clambered over
And looked around in desperation.
Then she explored the whole table top in its entirety.
Every inch of the summit.
And she found, to her horror, not a single sign of anything remotely edible.

Slowly, tragically, the terrible truth dawned upon her.
Her planned ascent to Heaven
Had led instead to a fiery Hellish knowledge.

It was a disaster. The worm had turned!

Mr Free, she realised with certainty, was no longer free.

He had finally succumbed to….

…..Domestication!

Big Dream, Little Dream

A Haiku

Big Dream, Little Dream
Foetus and Human Being
Giein it Laldy.

nb. “Giein it Laldy” def. Scots - “Doing a thing with exceedingly great enthusiasm”

Premier Man

My Fourth of the Month released today is called Premier Man.

If you listen to the songs, btw, or in fact read this blog, you can get both direct to your inbox. It doesn’t cost anything and it is a way of showing support for what I do.

The song today is, in my head, an imaginary journey that Elon Musk takes to the planet Mars. On the journey he discovers his limitations and becomes a mere humble human being.

Alpha One to earth

I’m not getting through

Not getting through

To you or my destination

Alpha One to earth

There’s a butterfly on my screen

A butterfly on my screen

It’s a revelation.

Well, I’m the Premier Man
With my heart rate low
And a golden glow
Nothing gonna stop me now

They say I’m the Premier Man

It’s getting hard to bear

This thinner air

And nothing gonna stop me
Nothing gonna stop me now

Alpha one to earth
I’m a little beaten

Just a little beaten

Like a third world nation

Alpha one to earth

There’s a lump in my throat

A frickin’ lump in my throat

It’s a situation

Well, I’m the Premier Man
With my heart rate low
And a golden glow
There’s nothing gonna stop me now

They say I’m the Premier Man

Well it’s hard to bear

This thinner air

Nothing gonna stop me
Nothing gonna stop me

Nothing gonna stop me

Nothing gonna sto.

Eight

The truth is unpleasant to behold. My default mental state is to want to be somewhere else.

Even my present desire to be present “in the moment” is a part of that restlessness. I am restless here. So I want to be over there where I’m not restless.

You can see how this could drive a fella crazy. You can see why moving from one distraction to the next can seem so appealing.

But why fight it. Because only in accepting the Eight I have in my open hand, which includes the very restlessness I would like to be rid of, is it possible for any lasting peace or new horizons to appear.

Or maybe not.

Because accepting that “Eight” includes the not accepting it as well.

The figure eight is all I have.

Nine.

I didn’t see that coming.

Don’t Dream It’s Over

Now here’s one sweet Sunday song.

Don’t Dream It’s Over

It take particular skills to build a thing. But somethings just need to be torn down. No particular skills required for the tearing down of those walls between us. Just our intention and our willingness.

And even better if we can stop them being built in the first place.

”They come, they come to build a wall between us
We know they won't win”

Far

I once learnt a little bit of Farsi.

It’s a distant memory now. Of a distant place and time. Of a journey we once took to Iran to see friends who I have not now seen or spoken to for the longest time.

But those distant memories are no more distant, in truth, than my memory of making myself a coffee half an hour ago. Both that cup of coffee and our trip to see Hossein, Pooran, Marzi and Vaji two decades ago, are as distant, or as close by, as each other. In my world.

Both happened then, not now. Now they exist only in my conscious mind.

Although even the actual experiences, now I come to mention it, only happened in my conscious mind back then. And both experiences are equally accessible to me now. One can connect me to the other in fact.

To prove the point, my synapses just connected them.

What a remarkable universe exists within each of us.

Smile

Do you remember Nicola Adams, the female boxer who came to prominence in the UK during the London Olympics of 2012?

She punched people. And meanwhile she lit up everything and everyone around with that Smile. Which is the name of the song I wrote about her.

The world can seem like it’s trying to punch the smile right off of our faces. But Nicola was very good at demonstrating that those smiles can have a stronger impact than a knockout punch. I hope she’s still at it!

And we should find a reason too. We should train. We should practise and spar. We should work up a sweat. We should watch and learn from the masters.

But one thing is certain. Our smiles are needed out there in the world, punching the living daylight out of despair and cynicism.

When You Come Fourth

I spoke yesterday about my sense of the impossibility of knowing what somebody else’s experience is really like. This arising because of our completely unique perspectives on the universe. Or our fundamental loneliness, if we choose to look at it or face it in those terms.

But still we try to reach across the divide. And that happens to be, or can become, one of the best qualities of our human lives - these attempts to understand each other.

Because of the many humans who try to do this, I feel I can confidently assert that, for everybody, there is somebody - whether family member, friend, or complete stranger - who cares “When You Come Fourth”. Whatever we may think or feel.

So though we may, in one sense, be completely alone in our little conscious corner of the conscious universe … we are, paradoxically, never alone. And our efforts to lessen somebody else’s sense of suffering are never futile or wasted. In fact those efforts demonstrate the very best of us. However cack-handed our attempts may be.

Now, more than ever, we should not stop trying to reach across those lonely divides.

Have Your Cake And Eat It

The saying goes “You can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It too”.

I beg to differ. I’ve got life, I’m constantly eating it, yet life remains.

It keeps reproducing itself. What a cake!

Today it reproduced a sixth grandchild for myself and Ineke. A baby boy. Mother, Baby…..and Dad (!) all doing, exhaustedly, well.

We haven’t been informed of the name yet. But I’ve been calling the wee fella Om in the proceeding months. So a very happy Birth day Om!

Enjoy your cake.

And don’t believe everything you hear. You can have it and eat it too.

Hidden

My daughter in law, Tharushi, is on the verge of giving birth.

The experience she is having is not only one that is happening many miles away, in Aberdeen. It is also happening many metaphorical miles away from an experience I can ever (please excuse the pun) conceive of having. An experience which is completely unknown to me, and always will be, as a man.

But although woman who have given birth can identify with what Tharushi is going through, both my wife, who is just arriving in Aberdeen on the bus as I write, and my other daughter in law, Susanna, both of whom have given birth to five children, can only unlock that experience via their foggy memory banks. And even then it won’t have been the same.

Only Tharushi gets to actually experience this one.

And, in terms of our own life experiences, that is true for all of us. Everybody else’s perspective, however empathetic we may be, is Hidden from us if truth be told.

We all get a completely unique perspective on the universe. This is our blessing and our curse.

When Your Mind’s Made Up.

Sunday Song is by Glen Hansard - When Your Mind’s Made Up

As far as fellas with an acoustic guitar go, this fella is as close as I can find to “the kind of thing I do” in regard to performing style. Mixing up the soft with the intense.

Except that he just does it better. Now I’m not into living in the shadow of unsatisfactory comparison anymore. It’s not helpful. But that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge a difference in quality between something I do, and something someone else does. This guy knows what he’s doing.

So, yeah, Glen, although I’ve never seen him live, is an inspiration and an aspiration in that respect. The link above is showing me (allowing for those differences that make me, uniquely me) how to do it.

Last Song Standing

What to sing?

What would be my Last Song Standing?

Where to plant my flag?

When faced with the choice to live (because life always tries to cling to life) or to die (because to live would or could make life worse for others, or compromise my own precious integrity) what would be the rock that I would chose to stand upon from which I would make that decision.

I don’t think I will know that until, when or if, the moment comes.

But to be sure of making a good choice in that circumstance, I am undoubtedly going to need to learn to make good choices today.

-Is this a morbid or depressing thought? No. Well, a little bit perhaps. But people are having to make those kind of choices all the time in parts of the world where peace hasn’t prevailed. And my time for those choices, it would be stupid to believe otherwise, might come too. I’m just being practical.

In Another World

It can be a distraction. It can take us away from dark or painful moments. It can help us to dream too. And to imagine things becoming better.

When we place ourselves, by the power of imagination In Another World, we demonstrate our capacity and potential as humans. A capacity and potential that has made us the peoples and the cultures that we are today.

But sometimes that dream world is simply a way of avoiding and dealing with now. In my personal experience, more often than not, it’s been a way of avoiding now.

So I’m finding it more helpful to keep those dreams of other worlds and distant planets quite vague. Less of an immediate escape. More a general direction for travel.

I try to merely glance up and see other landscapes and other possibilities. Things that move my heart and cause me to want to move.

And then I return to now and give all my attention to the next step. One that will take me in roughly the right direction.

There’s always a distance between There and Here.

But the truth is that we are always, and always will be, only and forever, Here.