Something not about blowing up people or elections.

Other people can talk about those.

A friend mentioned at lunchtime today something he'd heard on woman's hour on BBC Radio 4. A (female) journalist had made the observation that bookshops were full of self-help books for women, yet there wasn't a single book on how to help others.

From my own life & character, I know that often I feel better serving others than serving myself. I need to be able to work & help in order to hold off feeling down or without value, even though doing that can feel nearly impossible at times. Could there be a clue from the dead-sea principle?

We wandered around various ideas related to this, including the puzzlement that men don't get anorexia but many more men commit suicide than women, about how we didn't suffer body dismorphia when we were young and saw all those adverts for bullworkers in magazine an comics that told us we'd get sand kicked in our faces if we weren't built like Charles Atlas. Also included was the question as to whether the focus on self-fulfillment isn't just because of widespread illiteracy about faith, but also if a humanist focus that made us our own god had robbed us of the ability to serve something greater and become less fractured through doing so.

And now off to washing lab floors. :-)

Thank you, Emma.

For the kind words you left.

A little Monday moment

Ever wish words weren't so loaded?

When I grew up, being gay just meant being happy - no other connotations attached.

More recently, the word 'inclusive' used to mean exactly what it said, without all the gender-ambiguous, sexuality confused, racist connotations that have now replaced the original meaning.

So we come to gender neutral.

This morning I read on the BBC website that Emma Watson had won the first gender neutral award in showbusiness for her part in Beauty and the Beast. What they meant was that she had won the MTV Movie and TV award for her performance. It's just an award - it's not gender-neutral, but simply an award - that will be given to people in the entertainment industry.

It seems that in order to become not against something, one must first divide the world up into little bits, all opposed to each other, and then declare that you are overlooking all those divisions you just defined in a very public way.

People are strange.

Disconcerting co-incidences

Wishing someone nicknamed 'peachy' happy birthday via LinkedIn, then receiving an email from someone with the surname Peachey just 5 min later.

Bizarre, if quite unconnected.

It seems I've started praying again

Not the odd few words in a public place, though I've managed that when put on the spot, but finding that I'm starting to pray for people and situations without having to.

After our friend Jo dying last year I effectively stopped talking to God - why do it if what we say or ask doesn't change outcomes? That question is still very present, but I found myself praying when I'd just woken up a few weeks ago, for a couple experiencing hard times and difficulties. It hasn't opened the floodgates, but there are people I care for that are struggling in a wide variety of ways.

I can understand somewhat why Muslims developed a theology of inshAllah - if God wills - not expecting Him to be involved with their lives. At least that's better than a Greek understanding, where their gods were just badly behaved people.

To Scifi or not Scifi

A couple of weeks back I had an idea for a scifi story, about an ordinary guy working in a garage fixing cars. He's based in a technological society not so very different from ours, but where the self-driving car has become normal, everything is connected and mankind is still wondering what's next.

What's the story then?

Well, he's just an ordinary guy, knows about cars, happy to fix them, but he's shy, not otherwised inclined to tech and finds the lives of those arpound him bizarre as he keeps his head down and just does his job. There would be little cameos of customers and situations that arise from the vehicles he fixes. There could be snatches of home life, a wife & small, puzzling people that seem to share the house with them, but he really lives in his own world most of the time, observing life through a half-open garage door.

Artemis Hearthroug.

It would not be a 'Christian' book.

Will it happen? Probably not, though it's a nice idea. I've heard that everyone has a book inside them, but these days too many of them are getting out and being published when they should have been left out of sight. There's more than enough rubbish in virtual print already.

But you never know.

So my legs don't hurt so much now.

Yes, that title is all wrong. Ain't life grand. :-D

I managed a total of 3 runs up to the beginning of last week, at which point life just became too busy and my legs were too achey for me to want to run any more for a bit. Today, for the first time in over a week they don't seem to be hurting much, and I actually feel inclined to try running again.

I forgot my kit this morning. :-(

Never mind, maybe tomorrow night.