Luke Littler, 16-year-old darts champion
You should let go of the conceptual illusion of the past. Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives looking backward into the past, dwelling on the illusion of some event that we choose to keep giving energy. We assign emotion and belief to the past and accept some identity based on that emotion. We are living in the twilight of illusion, energy that is constantly in flux, never real, but tragically defining who we are. If you keep looking backward, you are going to miss this life. Let go of the illusion of the past as well as the illusion of the future. Choose your intended outcome, and let go of the illusion of it; do not spend time locking into something that has not happened.
David Morehouse
Bobbing Around
Volume Twenty-three, Number Seven,
January, 2024
Bob Rich’s rave
bobswriting.com anxietyanddepression-help.com/ mudsmith.net/ previous issues
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* From me to you
A puzzle
New link
And a new interview: Using Buddhist Psychology to Stay Sane When the World Has Gone Mad
Re-vision
Health report
| New content | Posts during the past month | COMPASSION | He can die with joy in his heart |
| INSPIRATION | A brave young man refuses to kill 7-year-old’s special party for her 100-year-old best friend Would you risk likely death to save a baby? |
Snapshot of enlightenment |
| PSYCHOLOGY | The meaning of pain Loosen that stiff muscle guided imagery Clarifying questions |
|
| DEEPER ISSUES | Down with the GDP! Fake news is an old device Different continents, same world-view |
Change comes from the inside out, not the outside in Moving the opinion of climate change deniers |
| TECHNOLOGY | Bean air conditioner | |
| WRITING | Freebies? | |
| ANNOUNCEMENTS | Crime in the bush Bird Language Retreat |
How to cope with anything: online course by Pragito Dove |
| REVIEWS | Home to Biloea by Priya Nadesalingam A Short Course in Counseling, by David Sarikaya |
Professor David Sarikaya reviews From Depression to Contentment |
| POETRY | The octopussycat |
From me to you
A puzzle
New link
And a new interview: Using Buddhist Psychology to Stay Sane When the World Has Gone Mad
Re-vision
Health report
A puzzle
I have a friend who intends to retire this year from decades of distinguished service as a social worker, immediately after his nineteenth birthday. What is the date of that?
New link
My chat about religion and stuff can now be watched at a new place. I haven’t checked, but my guess the content is the same as last month.
I noticed that this version has an auto-generated transcript. I had a look and it’s so far off reality that don’t bother. AI is not yet as good at English as you or I.
The new spot has had 47 views. Please send people along to increase that number.
And a new interview: Using Buddhist Psychology to Stay Sane When the World Has Gone Mad
I’ve had an hour’s chat with Valeria Koopman, a nice young lady, about how to use Buddhist psychology to stay sane in a crazy world. By the time I looked at the interview on YouTube, it had 2100 views.
There is a slight glitch in the recording. During the editing process, somehow a few short tracks of me speaking are spliced into Valeria talking, with me muted. But then, it is about Buddhist psychology. Equanimity/acceptance is an essential part of that, so, OK, I can live with it as long as the rest is entertaining, and useful.
Please visit and see for yourself. You may find the inspiration to comment. And of course please send others along.
You will find links to a great many other interesting interviews on her website, Fit for Joy.
Re-vision
While posting the link to Valeria’s interview to my welcome page, I revisited a few of my past guest posts, and found this revision to indeed be re-vision. You might, too.
Health report
My dear daughter is hanging in there. At her last three-monthly scan, there were no new lumps, some things have decreased and nothing has increased. And she is still being of service to her many clients. In her work, she is more like a Business Mother than a bookkeeper. (She is actually a qualified accountant, but decided many years ago to work for half the pay as a bookkeeper for what I agree with her are perfectly valid reasons.)
As for me, tomorrow, 24 January, I’ll have the doubtful pleasure of a surgeon crawling up one of my major arteries to insert a new valve into my heart. The last time someone played around in my vascular system, I survived the 12th opportunity to die. I’ll let you know next month if I have managed to get off the planet this time. (Chances are low.)
My wife is to face her more challenging operation in February. I’ll keep you posted, whether you want to know or not.
By the way, I am using one of the most important of my 7 magic bullets to cope: it’s hard to feel any negative emotions while laughing. So, I give you 7 guesses as to which magic bullet this is.
Compassion
He can die with joy in his heart
LeGrand Gold is dying of cancer.
Somehow, Dolly Parton found out that one of his last wishes is to meet her. So, she phoned him, and sang him a personalised version of “I will always love you.”
You can read the story in the Washington Post.
Inspiration
A brave young man refuses to kill
At 17 years of age, he was tried in a military court for being insane. The reason? He refused conscription into the Israeli army.
Current events validate his courage. His articulate, well reasoned account will both inspire and inform you.
7-year-old’s special party for her 100-year-old best friend
No more needs to be said, right? Joe is a World War 2 veteran who has just turned 100. His stories had inspired Layla’s dad when he was a boy, and now she enjoys spending time with him.
So, she organised his birthday party. Check it out here.
Would you risk likely death to save a baby?
This 18-year-old girl-just saw three of her neighbours die trying to do so. She did it anyway. Her reason? “I did what any sane person would do.”
She is wrong on that. Most people would stand back and wring their hands. It takes exceptional decency and courage to do what she did.
Deeper Issues
Down with the GDP!
Economics is science fiction. There are few economists I admire, but fellow Australian Green, Professor Bob Costanza, is one of them. We have worked together for sanity in the past, and he is on the Bobbing Around mailing list.
You just have to read his latest article in Nature.
He shows what’s wrong with the GDP, and how we should measure economic benefit instead. He has reported that the understanding among many politicians is at last catching up with reality.
Fake news is an old device
During the Middle Ages, a prejudiced preacher invented a “fact,” and attributed it to a couple of saints. A respected priest casually mentioned he’d heard him say so, but could not find any verification in the source documents.
This ancient lie has been the basis of a great deal of cruelty over the ages, to the present. The victims: LGBTQ+ people, particularly male homosexuals.
Please read this fascinating, well-written and compassionate account by Michael David Barbezat.
Different continents, same world-view
I happen to be as familiar with several Australian Aboriginal cultures as a new settler to this continent can be. When I worked for the Bunurong Aboriginal Health Centre, I made sure to study their culture, and gratefully accepted instruction from my friends there. I live in Wurundjeri country, and several of them are my friends, including an elder. And while writing Maraglindi, I did a huge amount of reading, and received advice from a Worimi historian and an Awabakal elder.
While the hundreds of original Australian First Nations cultures vary in many ways, there are also distinct similarities. A couple are: “Humans are not apart from nature, but a part of Her,” and “Even landforms like rivers and mountains have personalities, and deserve respect and even reverence.”
OK, now for the other continent. I was reading about a Native American nation I’ve never heard of. They live in Maine, or more exactly, Maine occupies their country. They revere the river that was traditionally central to their life, until the white man converted it to a rubbishy, dead stream.
They have done something about it: they bought the dams responsible for most of the damage, and dismantled them.
The river is now back to its previous glory.
Technology
Bean air conditioner
You can read (and copy) a great way to keep a room cool in the heat of summer: runner beans covering sun-facing windows.
I get my electricity (or more exactly, send my excess electricity to the grid) via Co-power, which was formed by Friends of the Earth and several other environmental organisations. Sharing stories like this is one of their projects.
I approve of these announcements
Crime in the bush
The wait for the much-anticipated release of Trevor Tucker’s fifth novel, God Only Knows When, is over. It is now available in both print book and eBook formats.
This novel brings into focus the criminal underbelly of Rural Australia and the consequences of farm invasion and stock theft; something which has regrettably remained a blight in Australia since Colonisation, and often leads to suicides.
Meet face to face with cruel, murderous and yet often incredibly clever criminals, while following the attempts of newly appointed Livestock Investigation Officers to identify and eliminate rustling chains, stop false branding, eliminate bee hive theft, and put an end to wildlife smuggling, just for starters.
This is a “provocative must read” for every rural-centric, honest and hardworking farmer, but also for the youth of today.
Inspired by the joy and intense satisfaction of writing his first four books, Ned Kelly’s Son, The Stolen maps: Australia’s greatest maritime secret?, Aussie Anecdotes, and A sense of Justice, Trevor embarked upon his fifth authorial adventure. For him, writing is a glorious illness he calls The Dreamer’s Disease.
Bird Language Retreat
Claire Dunn, “Nature’s Apprentice,” has teamed up with Andrew Turbill, the “Bird Guy,” to run an inspiring retreat, 11-14 April.
This is in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Australia, practically in my backyard.
You can find all the details here.
Reviews
Home to Biloea by Priya Nadesalingam
I bought this book as my wife’s Christmas present.
We have both read it, but had trouble getting through all the tragic parts. One bit, almost in passing, was when the family was on a plane to Sri Lanka, and rescued at the last minute. The plane-full of young men were not rescued, being sent to guaranteed torture and probably death.
Why are Australian governments so inhumane?
We are delighted that this lovely family is back home, and only wish the same was true for all asylum seekers.
A Short Course in Counseling, by David Sarikaya
The first one-third of this little book is a set of very detailed and explicit instructions on how to run a counselling course. It is guidance for the instructor rather than the students, in that it lists what to teach, and in what order, without specifying how to teach these skills and what exactly they involve in terms of action.
For counselling students, the book will be essential if the instructor uses it, and very helpful to evaluate the course they are being taught otherwise. I can see a student reading it, then asking the instructor, “Aren’t we going to cover psychodynamic approaches?” or “How do I ensure that I act with empathy?”
If I were the instructor, I could do a lot worse than to adopt this guide exactly as it is. It covers all the essentials, in a logical and easy-to-follow manner, and doing so would save me a great deal of effort in doing it for myself.
The course guide is a list of sessions, with summary description of the content of each. In order to make each lesson as self-contained as possible, and to avoid the need to keep jumping around within the book, David has chosen to repeat relevant points, some over and over. I think this is justified, and makes the program far easier to implement.
David then goes on to detail his Self Empowerment Therapy, a little-known approach that deserves independent experimental evaluation.
Poetry
The octopussycat
-
The optopussycat doesn’t purr.
But tickle it, and it does stir.
(And isn’t it funny those two words rhyme,
I find homophones sublime.)
I am composing this little ditty
Rather than to be drowned in pity
For all the suffering around the world—
Empathy is REALLY absurd.
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