Cock And Bull

• Happiness FM

  Posted: January 28, 2010, 7:43 am by Administrator

  If you have ever listened to news on a radio on Short Wave (SW) frequency, then you know that it is as dodgy as an artist trying to make a painting of clothes on a hanging line on a windy day. The voice of the announcer seems to drift in and out of clear hearing range, and one is forced to impatiently tinker with the dial in order to lock in the sound, if only to hear an importance announcement.

  And so it seems to be for most people as far as happiness is concerned. One moment they have it, and the next they are trying to do something in order to get it back. It becomes a very fleeting business that is rife with frustration. And looking for happiness can become a very unhappy affair!

  But is it possible to have a strong and purposeful grip of happiness? Can it be as clear and focused as the sound that comes from a radio of Frequency Modulation (FM)? Yes. And the reason is because it is something that is within our conscious control. Perhaps the virility of happiness can be captured in the meaning of the following quote by Abraham Lincoln (16th President of the United States):

  “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

• Comfort Zone

  Posted: January 28, 2010, 7:21 am by Administrator

  Someone asked me about the ‘Comfort Zone’. The first thing that came to mind is the fact that we all are looking for happiness in life. And each time we find happiness, we simultaneously discover a comfort zone. And yet, we are discouraged from being in the comfort zone. Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that we should always be looking for the bigger, better, shinier thing, and (quietly) implies that once we get it, we will be happier. In other words, postpone your happiness for another day or month or year. Surprisingly, the ardent proponents of this theory always tend to change their minds when all is said and done, and instead argue that people find out what is truly important in their lives early enough and enjoy it often.

  So, what is it that is important in life? Is it wealth? Is it serving others? Is it giving time to religious causes? I have seen people who spend all their waking hours serving humanity, yet they do not consider what they do to be important enough to warrant a life time commitment. I have seen people who ‘work for God’ gladly walk out of that obligation to take up ‘human work’. We all have heard about or seen people who give up their wealth and affluent living to settle for modest lifestyles.

  So, what is it that is important in life? If I was to think of the one single thing that I would say gives life meaning, it would be that which makes us happy. And yet, happiness puts us squarely in a comfort zone. Now, is that so bad?

• Swimming Goggles

  Posted: January 27, 2010, 8:42 am by Administrator

  I recently discovered a nice swimming spot in town. It is at the Meridian Court Hotel near the Globe Cinema Roundabout in Nairobi. The swimming pool is at the roof top of the hotel building 6 floors up. Compared to other swimming pools in Nairobi, it is large and clean, and not crowded at all. The cover charge per day is KShs. 200 and it is open to the public every day till 6pm. When I went there to swim on Sunday, I became concerned since my eyes became red and irritated. That usually happens each time I would go swimming and I attributed it to the Chlorine that is used to treat water in a swimming pool. Since I plan to swim at least 3 times a week, I decided to get myself a pair of swimming goggles to try and remedy the situation.

  I did not know what to expect since I have never used swimming goggles before. Actually, each time I see anyone with a pair at the pool, I always assume that they are expert swimmers. In my mind, I associated anyone with a pair of swimming goggles and those tight briefs to be an expert swimmer. Maybe in the same way that I would expect anyone carrying a surfing board to be able to ride a wave.

  And so yesterday I went to Nairobi Sports House to buy myself a pair of goggles. I have to admit that I was surprised to find most of them to be over KShs. 1,500. The most I had expected to spend was KShs. 600. Anyway, I got a good pair after parting with KShs. 2,100. The sales girl assured me that the ‘Speedo’ goggles would serve me well, and I said to myself “They had better!”

  When I got to the swimming pool later in the afternoon, I wore my swimming goggles and got into the water. Even though I was expecting that my eyes would remain dry throughout the swimming experience, I was surprised to realize that I had a window through which to look at life inside the swimming pool! I am sure you know how the pool water usually looks cloudy when you look through it and you can’t even see other swimmers until you are just about to painfully bump into them. With swimming goggles, everything is bright and clear. It actually feels like looking into an aquarium.

  At first, I kept getting out of breathe since I would forget that I was under water and stay too long without coming up for air. However, once I got used to the new vision, I began realizing the benefits of wearing swimming goggles. The first and most obvious benefit is that with a clear view of where you are going, it is so easy to free your mind to focus on your swimming techniques. For example I was able to practice swimming in a straight line since I could easily follow the small lines that are traced by the joints where two tiles come together on the swimming pool floor. Another benefit is that even when swimming under water, I could see the approach of those energetic guys who can easily mow you down as they furiously churn across the pool in a blind effort to get across by sheer brute force. And while steering clear of other swimmers you get the additional benefit of the guilt free thrill of discreetly checking them out from the waist below. Of course my eyes remained dry and for the first time, I came out of the swimming pool without any redness or sore vision.

• The Thinker and the Prover

  Posted: January 26, 2010, 9:39 am by Administrator

  My head is toying around with a quote that I read in a book; “The Thinker Thinks and the Prover Proves”. This saying is used in reference to our Conscious and Sub-Conscious mind. In general, it refers to the Conscious mind as the Thinker and the Sub-Conscious mind as the Prover. Being one of those people who once in a while gets lost in the woods of the concept of Conscious Mind and Sub-Conscious Mind, any explanation that comes along I welcome.

  I will try to explain what I understand about this saying by telling you a story of what happened on Friday evening. I got home early expecting to have a quiet evening when two of my friends called and said they were coming over. I was glad because we hadn’t met in a while even though we had been trying to set up a meeting for some time, in vain.

  When they arrived, we were all excited to share the news of what had been going on in our lives. But eventually, the conversation turned to an incident that happened in one of my friend’s office. It involved some two young men who were talking about drugs; in the casual way that two girlfriends might discuss the merits and demerits of a particular facial cream. In the course of that conversation, it emerged that the effects of one of the drugs is to make a person hallucinate ‘a little green man’. So, one of the young man advised the other, “If you see a little green man, just ignore him.” I would imagine that the little green man is a party pooper.

  My friend was so petrified at the prospect of seeing a little green man that the rest of us brought up all sorts of stories to make fun of her. Soon, we exhausted the story of the little green man, and it emerged that my friend was carrying a copy of a movie called, “What the Blip do we Know?” None of us had watched it and when I put it in the DVD player, we all found ourselves captivated by the promising beginning. And so we decided to settle down and watch the movie.

  The movie generally explains how we can free ourselves from destructive tendencies that we all find ourselves acting out over and over again in our lives. It talked about taking charge of life through understanding how we get ‘hooked’ into destructive cycles and addictions that we just cannot seem to break out of. For example, there was an overweight man at a party who was gorging himself with food to the point of bursting, and yet he continued even though he wanted to stop; he was addicted to food. In the explanation to how the situation comes about, the movie talks about the emotional attachment that the man had on food, and the dependency that his body had on the chemicals secreted by the thoughts that trigger the eating binge. Those retrogressive thoughts were represented as little green men that talked to the overweight man and mercilessly prodded him to eat.

  When we got to that point of the movie, my ‘little green man’ friend suddenly shot up in disbelief. She just couldn’t fathom the fact that she had ‘attracted’ little green men in her life! It was pretty amazing to watch her reaction. She was even concerned that the overeating man didn’t take the advice to ignore the little green man!

  “The Thinker Thinks and the Prover Proves”: My friend consciously thought about little green men, and her sub-conscious mind – the Prover – materialized little green men.

  How do we end up with a habit? When the Thinker thinks and the Prover proves for long enough, then the Prover will become so competent that he will prove even without the Thinker having to think. The Prover just needs a signal – for example an image that existed whenever the Thinker thought – to know that it is yet again time to prove. The habit will become as automatic as looking up and down the road before crossing, or opening the mouth when a spoon approaches with food. Do we think about such things? And yet at some point in life, we had to learn by consciously thinking about it.

  How do we break a habit? By having a different thought each time we are confronted with the same old situation that we do not want to re-live. The Thinker will think a different thought and the Prover will prove a different reality. Which comes down to what we already know; to break a habit, replace it with another habit.

  It has been proven that when you follow a sequence of events for 21 days in a row, or for 21 times, then you form a habit. Any subsequent time you follow the same sequence of events, you reinforce the habit: similar to how the wheels of a car make a deeper imprint onto a dirt road with each subsequent pass. To break a habit? Try having a different thought each time confronted with the same old situation that you do not want for 21 days in a row. Not necessarily easy to do, but possible.

• Taming

  Posted: January 25, 2010, 9:58 am by Administrator

  I have a friend who wakes up one day and re-organizes her whole house. Prior to that, she would be brooding or be in one of those places where people go to when they need answers. Then one day I asked her, “What would happen if you felt the urge to re-organize and just resisted it?” The reason why I asked is that I figured that at that moment of re-organization, she has very powerful energy inside her that was capable of seeing the same puzzle but with the pieces arranged differently. If she didn’t spend it on organizing furniture, then it would be used inside to re-organize the pieces of the puzzle of her life.

  Well, I never got to convince her not to re-organize, but I often thought about it. And then in a discussion with another friend, she told me that when sexual energy threatens to destabilize her, she uses it to write poems. However, she couldn’t offer the explanation of the steps of how that happened because to her, it was normal.

  The reason why I was curious was because I couldn’t have imagined how one can ignore the furiously pounding heartbeat of a lustful mind for anything else in this world. At least not until I asked myself; “What if I use that energy instead to re-arrange my house?” Incredibly, I was able to shelve lust in that moment and managed to re-organized my house; furiously. And I remembered my friend.

  And even sometimes when I am in the middle of a storm and I feel compelled to do something – if only to get a distraction from the battering – I decide not to do anything at all. When that happens, you might get bewildered to feel the energy burn itself out like a wood camp fire when the campers retreat into the tent for the night. Have you ever opened a Coke bottle and the drink just bubbles to the top and you were afraid that it would pour? You moved the bottle away from you in anticipation of the dark liquid cascading over and making a mess on clean surfaces. But then, the hissing bubbles barely make it over the rim and quietly hiss back into the bottle. Can you imagine the relief? Well, that is how it feels like when you feel the tornado die down slowly to a wind that only flutters the leaves on a tree.

  Just ask yourself, “What if I use this energy instead to….?” And something just might happen.

• One Eye and Then Another

  Posted: January 23, 2010, 10:27 am by Administrator

  In a conversation with his friend Andre Marchand, the French artist Henri Matisse described the process of passing perceptions from one way of looking to another:

  “Do you know that a man has only one eye which sees and registers everything; this eye, like a superb camera which takes minute pictures, very sharp, tiny – and with that picture man tells himself: ‘This time I know the reality of things,’ and he is calm for a moment. Then, slowly superimposing itself on the picture, another eye makes its appearance, invisibly, which makes an entirely different picture for him.

  “Then our man no longer sees clearly, a struggle begins between the first and second eye, the fight is fierce, finally the second eye has the upper hand, takes over and that’s the end of it. Now it has command of the situation, the second eye can then continue its work alone and elaborate its own picture according to the laws of interior vision. This very special eye is found here,” says Matisse, pointing to his brain.

  Marchand didn’t mention which side of his brain Matisse pointed to.

  -J. Flam
  Matisse on Art, 1973

  As Quoted in the Book ‘The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain‘
  By Betty Edwards

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes