A Comment on Media and Society

For whatever reason, our world is populated by a small but significant number of psychopaths and sociopaths....Since Freud, our society has suffered from a sort of mental and moral amnesia. We really have come to believe that normalcy no longer exists and that everyone has a phobia or a neurosis. It is not so.

Apologetics for the 21st Century by Dr. Louis Markos

My interpretation. There are more good people out there than we think. The media just focuses on the bad people.

Daily

I wake up. I make coffee. I bring a cup to the office and sit at my computer (a Mac) and check my mail and my top sites.

Every morning.

I love my Mac for so many reasons but my favorite feature is in Safari. I can click a square in the top left corner and my 12 favorite sites are graphically displayed. Those with new posts have a lovely blue star in the top right corner. I always know what is new.

What is always on this screen?

Amazon and Scouttrack are there for ease of navigation.

Next are Mental multivitamin, Girl Detective, and 11D. These hve been there the longest. Mental multivitamin has been a steady read for at least 4 years.

Next are Joanne Jacobs and Mamapundit. Katie Granju of Mamapundit became a regular in April or May when she lost her son to a drug overdose. Her story, well-written, has moved me and made me appreciate how I have been blessed.

A recent bookish site addition is Nonsuch Book. She is a little intimidating, but in a challenging way. And she buys more books than anyone I have come across on the web.

Food blogs I read include The Homesick Texan and Gluten-free Girl. Texan is a new find that helps a "yankee" like me cook like I have lived in Texas my whole life. And while I do not have celiac or gluten intolerance, Gluten-free Girl is a wonderful story and has great recipes for anyone.

Rounding out the top 12 are The Ivory Hut and Copy Cat Chic. These are new finds. Copy Cat Chic was added when I thought I wanted to redecorate 4 rooms in my house. It is growing tiresome and will probably be replaced. Ivory Hut is filler right now, but it has potential.

I have a few other sites I really enjoy, but I only check those about once a week.

I can be done in 10-15 minutes. It fits with my live more simply rule for 2011.

Get off the computer. Read (books) more.

Busy Days

Expect a flood of posts in the next few days. I have been saving up my thoughts to pour out to you since the end of May. So much has happened around here, but I have been too busy with life to write about it. It's a good thing to be busy in the way I have been. I celebrated my 41st birthday. My sister, her husband and her three kids visited us for six day (not long enough). The boys finished another school year (with straight A's). I have been reading. It has been wonderful.

Yet today I was wondering, what would my life be like if I gave 100%? What if I gave even 90%? Life has been pretty easy for me. I am relatively intelligent. While I'll never be a super model, I am not ugly. I have great eyes and a wonderful smile. I attract mostly good people. My husband is brilliant, kind and generous. My children are healthy. I have achieved all of this while running at about 30% most days. Sometimes I bump that up to 40% when I have a lot to do. What if I gave even more ... I don't mean gave more away. I mean what if I gave more into my own life? What if I put some real effort into it? What could I accomplish?

I have always written that my life is guided by the truth that you never get to live this day again. That there are no dress rehearsals. I have kind of always lived so that there are no regrets. Even things I wouldn't do again, I don't regret. Everything I have done has shaped where I am today. I like where I am today. But what if?

What if I gave 100%?

Random Thoughts

I don't have pet peeves,
I have whole kennels of irritation.

-Whoopi Goldberg

A Word of Explanation

You might be wondering why so many book reviews. Well, I decided to participate in Girl Detective's 15 Books in 15 Day challenge. The reviews you are reading daily are the result of that. I have also unplugged the T.V. for 5 days, so I can't comment on politics or the world I know nothing about. I have immersed myself in books rather than other forms of media. The result so far is that I feel much calmer. I don't hear as many voices in my head. They are quieting and allowing my own thoughts to come through. I like it.

Cast-Iron Belief

A post on one of my favorite blogs sent me to an article by John Polkinghorne. I have been pondering some of the questions - and many deeper ones - in my heart lately.

Well, I don’t think it’s possible to prove the existence of God. There are many things I don’t think you can prove in an absolutely cast-iron, logical way. You can prove that two plus two equals four; you can’t prove the foolishness or falseness of ridiculous assumptions. I could maintain that the whole world came into existence five minutes ago and that our memories of the past were created at that moment. I don’t think you could defeat me in logical argument about that, though we all know that would be an absurd thing to say. So proof, cast-iron proof, is pretty limited and not actually a very interesting category of things. I believe in quarks and gluons and electrons. I believe that’s the most intelligible, economic, persuasive interpretation of a whole swath of physical phenomena, but I don’t think I’ve proved their existence in the two plus two equals four sense — just as I can’t prove the existence of God. What we need, I think, is beliefs that are sufficiently well-motivated for us to feel that we can commit our lives to them, knowing that they may be false, but believing that they are the best explanation. I’m very sold on motivated belief but I am not sold on knowledge through proofs either in science or religion, or anything in between.

Mental multivitamin: John Polkinghorne: "I call myself a bottom-up thinker."

Random Thoughts

When you have to listen to abuse, that means you are being buffeted by the wind. When your anger is aroused, you are being tossed by the waves. So when the winds blow and the waves mount high, the boat is in danger, your heart is imperiled, your heart is taking a battering. On hearing yourself insulted, you long to retaliate; but the joy of revenge brings with it another kind of misfortune shipwreck.

Why is this? Because Christ is asleep in you. What do I mean? I mean you have forgotten his presence.

Rouse him, then; remember him, let him keep watch within you, pay heed to him … A temptation arises: it is the wind. It disturbs you: it is the surging of the sea. This is the moment to awaken Christ and let him remind you of these words: “Who can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”

- Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Mark

Random Thoughts

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Pablo Picasso

(Scary) Random Thoughts

I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life.

We've got to start teaching our kids about food in schools. Period.

I'll be watching his new show ... Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

This book agrees ... Anti-Cancer, A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber.

Random Thoughts

I was going to call this "Thought of the Day" Or "Thought of the Week," but there is no telling how often I will find something I think is worth sharing with you. So, "Random Thoughts" it is.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

C. S. Lewis