In A Whirlwind

Somehow this week seems to have flown by rather like a whirlwind of dry leaves. No special reason. I have been trying to take advantage of some fine autumn days – and even of one or two less fine. I have photos still in my camera that need to be transferred to the computer and sorted. I have thoughts in my head about which the same could be said! Some have found their way onto the keyboard, but into emails rather than blog posts. There’s a time for everything… I suppose.

All around me, others seem to be caught up in their own whirlwinds as well. Circumstances not behaving as we’d like them to. One minute, we think we know exactly where we are. The next… We don’t.

Hm. Apparently, the same goes for books. Between paragraphs I spent fifteen minutes or so looking for my Wizard of Oz book, knowing that I needed a quote from it. I can’t imagine where it’s gone off to. Must have been taken by a stormwind…

… Ah, there it is. (It had sought the company of Harry Potter, for some reason.) And here is the quote that I did not know I was looking for. Do you find that a contradiction? I knew I was looking for a quote from this book. Didn’t really know which one. Until now.

If you’ve been feeling lately like you’re being shaken by unexpected stormy weather, this is for you: 

“The cyclone had set the house down, very gently – for a cyclone – in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty.”

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ch 2

 

 

 

 

Success or Exhaustion

 

Now and then I find myself landing on some blog post or other which tries to define How To Be A Successful Blogger. Tips usually include things like: post regularly, keep to a theme, get out there and visit lots of other blogs, link, comment, interact… Just recently I came across one such post that a bit unexpectedly ended with the conclusion (rephrased by me):  “sorry, readers, I did all this, and was successful - but I can’t keep it up”.

It made me ponder about how we define success. Not just in blogging! - but let’s stick to that for now, to simplify things.

Really: How many followers should a blogger have to be counted as successful? How many page views? How many comments on average per post? How many… Oh, never mind…

Every now and then I find that I’m letting myself get stressed by goals set up by someone else – and not set up for me, but for them. How stupid is that?

Every time I do that, I have to go back to my own beginning, and ask myself: What goals did I set for myself?

If we stick to blogging… In my very first blog post ever (January 2009), I wrote: “I really have no clear idea yet what hidden things I want this blog to make visible. But maybe if I start writing, I will find out...”

I had hardly even read other blogs until I started my own. I had never heard the word “meme”. I knew one (1) person in the blogosphere. It seemed unbelievable that anyone else would ever just randomly find what I wrote. (That took two weeks, I think.) But I was curious to explore a bit more. I wanted to keep up writing, and the English language. And if I made some friends along the way, that would be great. That was about it…

Considering those goals (which did not include numbers of any kind), I’ve been “successful”. I’ve done a lot of exploring. I’ve kept writing. I’m communicating with other people in English. Some people across the earth whom I’ve never met have come to feel like close friends. On top of that I’ve expanded my photo interest – a lot. And after nearly two years I’m still here, enjoying it, feeling inspired by it…

… except when occasionally for obscure reasons I start to compare myself to goals set by other people who are not me. 

Why does one do that?!

Letting oneself get inspired by others is one thing.
Letting oneself get exhausted is another.  

“The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads swiftly via the Internet. --- In simple terms, an Internet meme is an inside joke, that a large number of Internet users are in on.”
Wikipedia

 
The pictures in this post are all from today (5 October 2010)

Heather and Folklore

Heather is one of our most common outdoor decoration plants this time of the year.

From my youth I remember being told by a Swedish friend (I can’t remember whom, though) that having heather in the house was supposed to be unlucky and connected with death. Happily unaware of this superstition I had been picking wild heather for indoors decoration, and someone objected to it. (Well, I never was superstitious anyway…)

Searching the internet now, I find the “unlucky” superstition listed in several Swedish web sites. In English, however, the connotations seem to be just the opposite: Purple heather is associated with admiration, beauty and solitude; pink heather with good luck; white heather with protection from danger.

In Britain, the idea that white heather is lucky was popularised by the Victorians.  White heather is less common than purple/pink. Folklore suggests that it grows over the final resting places of faeries, or on patches of ground where no blood had been shed.

The origin of the Swedish superstition I have not been able to find, except that besides death, to have heather indoors also seems to be associated with “inviting poverty”. Perhaps that’s where it comes from: Heather being used by poor people for different purposes, and so becoming a sort of anti-status symbol.(?)

The Latin name is Calluna Vulgaris. Calluna is derived from a Greek word meaning 'to sweep', and the plant was used to make brooms. Vulgaris means 'common'.

Anyway, I just love that street decoration in the top photo above: the heather in the old milk can, which I found outside a shop in town.

The second picture is from a garden center, just to show you that we do buy lots of it – although I think still mostly for outdoors use.

PS. I forgot to add: In Sweden each province is represented by a flower or plant, and heather is the province flower of Västergötland, where I live. 

 

 

Quotation of the Week (40/2010)

 
“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”
~ George Burns ~

The Importance Of Sleep

Readers who have been following me for a while know by now that I’m rather fascinated by dreams.

One evening this week, I watched a documentary on TV about sleep, dreams and sleep deprivation.

In the program, they followed a healthy young man who had volunteered for experiments involving sleep deprivation. Sleeping in a lab, with electrodes attached, scientists could follow exactly which stage of sleep he was in during different periods in the night, and decide when he should be disturbed or woken up.

For five nights in a row he was not allowed more than three hours of total sleep per night. After that, a series of tests were carried out. They showed clearly that sleep deprivation seriously affects physical health as well as the ability to concentrate mentally.

Sleep deprivation affects the levels of hormones which in turn affect things like appetite, insulin production, the cardiovascular system and the immune system. Had this young man gone on in the same way for some time longer, he would soon have been in the risk zone for diabetes, stroke and heart problems. He also showed very poor results in memory tests, and in driving tests.

In the driving tests, he was exposed to sudden events like a (mechanical) dog suddenly rushing out in front of the car. He hit it every time, unable to avoid it. In these tests too, the scientists were able to follow his brain activity, and lots of “micro sleeps” were registered. If I remember facts right, the driving test lasted for two or three hours, and during that time, this sleep deprived young man’s brain had actually been ‘asleep’ for a total of about 25 minutes.

Tests such as these prove that driving when not having had enough sleep is as dangerous as driving after taking drugs or alcohol. Lots of unexplained road accidents are likely to have been caused by tired drivers.

The good news is, when the young man was allowed normal sleep again, all of his hormone levels etc were also restored back to normal. This in turn proves that when the cause of tiredness is sleep deprivation, the answer is not to keep going with the help of drugs, but to find a way to get the proper amount of sleep.

Dreams were also mentioned. Scientists now believe that the function of dreams (or at least one of the functions) is to help the brain to store memories. Experiments showed that when people are woken up from their first round of dream sleep, in the late evening, the dreams are often not too difficult to relate directly to things that have happened during the day. Dreams that you dream towards morning are often a lot more complicated to sort out. The scientists interpret this as the brain then being further along in its sorting process, connecting the new memories with old ones.

All Still

Took the camera with me into town today to try and make up for yesterday’s blunder. But of course there was no sign of any Living Statue in the town square today. It was all empty and dull, nothing special going on at all. So we had to settle for other things, camera and I. Like colourful autumn leaves…

Although… wait a moment, what is that… On the other side of the river, under the tree, to the left? Could you zoom in, please? …

No costume, but keeping as still as that guy yesterday!

There was a sign of some kind on the grass beside him. I could not read it from that distance. Curiosity took over and I went back across the bridge to the park and walked by on the path there, closer to him. Falun Dafa, the sign said. Same thing as Falun Gong, as I understand it (not that I claim to understand it).

Suddenly seems to have become very popular to stand or sit very still, in public!

Myself, I went home and practiced my own variety after lunch: Lying very still, in private…

Never Leave The Camera Behind

I really should know better by now. Going into town today, I left my camera at home. It was a gray day, bad light for photography, an ordinary Friday morning, no special events day or market day, and I wasn’t going anywhere interesting (or so I thought), just to the pharmacy and the grocery store, and then the bus straight back home…

I really should know better by now. I really should.

As I crossed the town square on my way to the grocery store, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. A new statue? But oddly placed. And the summer’s sculpture festival is over. It was a figure of a man… natural size… silver coloured… but a very odd face? Sort of lion-like… no, not really lion… Wait. Wasn’t the whole thing swaying a little??? Yes, definitely… In a flash I realized that what I was looking at was a “living statue” (a mime artist posing like a statue, wearing realistic statue-like makeup).

I’ve never seen one of those before – not “live”. Only on TV. And I hadn’t brought my camera!!! (And I don’t have one in my mobile.)

20-30 minutes later, walking across the square again on my way back to my bus stop, he seemed still to be standing in the exact same position. On the ground beside him was a little golden bowl. I was in a bit of a hurry to catch my bus now, and didn’t stop to watch how long he could keep it up, or how other people reacted. I didn’t see anyone put money in the bowl.

This evening I took a look at some living statue clips on Youtube. It seems sometimes they move when you give money, and some make random moves to scare people…