 |
Robyn M
Speed |
||
|
Journal
of the Wandering Mind
I did not realize how technology dependent I was until my laptop had an accident--not caused by me--and was in 'laptop ICU' for a while. A shattered screen and a broken hinge meant that repair quotes had to be organized, then pick up and then pre-payment My laptop was gone for almost a week, during which time I used the family computer for checking emails and paper and pen for actual writing. Paper and pen....yes, I hear you say, you remember them...very un-tech! What I discovered was:
I never realized just how much I depended on my laptop until she had to go in for repairs. There was, however, a plus side to all of this: I got to watch more of the Olympics, and got to celebrate the guts and commitments of every athlete...but that's another journal entry... We rely on our technology tools much more than we realize, so let's take care of them and keep them safe! Yes, I am technology dependent...and tea dependent for that matter...but hey, I can live with that. The search for a publisher for a novel is exhausting. And if it is a search for a publisher of visionary fiction it is even more exhausting, and depressing. I read a comment somewhere on the Internet: 'there are probably more people writing visionary fiction than there are people reading it'. I find that hard to believe, given the multitude of people who read 'The Celestine Prophecy' and subsequent books by James Redfield, and also the multitude who read Dan Millman's books. Visionary fiction is the genre that married truth and fiction. I don't like books about power hungry people, sex and greed...I like books that share something of the Soul of the writer. I like books that, between the first page and the last page, change me in some way -- or at the very least make me laugh. The question I would like to ask is: why do people read books?
It is time we all thoroughly reviewed why we read, and it is time that we gave serious considerable to the books that we should be reading. Naturally I am going to give a huge push towards people reading visionary fiction, and that is because I know--both as a reader and a writer--the kind of magic that is woven, almost involuntarily, through visionary fiction. Buy it, read it, study it, recommend it to friends...(and tell all your friends to approach the bookshops demanding work by Robyn M. Speed, and if they don't have any tell them to contact their publishers and say they are having serious demands for books by Robyn M. Speed!!).... Personally, I have just bought some books written by Jasper Fforde, and am over half way through the first one 'The Eyre Affair', and I am loving it. Jasper is an excellent writer, and the abundant us of adverbs has not affected the story at all! So much for all that 'writer advice' stuff that says avoid adverbs like the plague. Perhaps literary rules, like all rules, really were made to be broken. Read, read, read and then read some more. Forget the stupid television and all its reality garbage-shows, pick up a book. Read. We are venturing dangerously close to being a humanity who would rather stare at a box and watch crap than pick up a literary work and wonder at how the human mind can weave words into such a tapestry of magic. Books are important. The ability to appreciate literature is far more important than what happened on 'Days of Our Lives', Alias' or 'Westwing', and far more important than who ate what on 'Fear Factor'. Reading develops our sense of creativity, our vocabulary (though I am absolutely against writers who use fancy-posh words instead of everyday English--when a simple word will do, use the simple word), reading opens our minds to infinite possibilities, it unleashes our own creativity. In Singapore many children are still reading Enid Blyton, whilst my son -- my children go to an International School in Singapore -- is re-reading 'Catch 22' because he enjoyed it so much on the first read, and my daughter is re-reading one of her collection of Eoin Colfer's books. Both my children have their own personal collection of books that they have bought themselves or that I have bought for them. Reading is an adventure that all children should (must!) be exposed to, and what better way than by example, by observing their parents' enjoyment of books. Turn off the television, and pick up a good book. Another bizarre truth: an actor plays a role of pretend and can earn millions of dollars. The writer who wrote what the actor is performing, made very little. Buy all the books you can, reward, support and encourage the writers who create. This is the Global Millennium of Supporting All Writers.......really? No I just made that up, but I am abundantly supportive of the concept. I just spent a wonderful month in New Zealand. Sheesh, what a beautiful country! We took a drive a few hours up the coast to see (and smell) the seals. We actually had an ulterior motive: my son and I had just bought some second hand camera lenses and we wanted to test them out, plus I was teaching my daughter about photography too. I'm no expert, but I have enjoyed photography for over twenty years and I wanted to share that with her. I ended up buying another camera which I think will suit her perfectly. Can't decide which smells worse: seals of silage? And yes, I am prepared to take a poll on that. The mountains and snow, the coastline and the rocky shore, the bush and the trees, the sheer joy of 'ROAD TRIP!!!" Wow. Plus: custard squares! I know, it sounds silly, but it's a taste from home and while I was there I was determined to get in my quota of custard squares. That's the problem with the abundance of Starbucks and such places, they are replacing the good old Kiwi coffee shops and their abundant cakes and sandwiches. Can you honestly say that a wedge of tiramisu is better than a cream filled lamington, a custard square, a nice ham sandwich, or a steak mince pie? Bring back the Kiwi coffee shops! Of course, what really made the holiday so perfect was spending time with family and friends. They are such astoundingly wonderful people. I talked more in that month than I probably did in the preceding eleven months in Singapore. Even my Dad and I would sit up talking till late at night--I loved every second of it. Just relaxing and talking with people, it was just what I needed. Though I have to admit that I did trip over my words the whole time because I was unused to so much talking. Strange how we lose our easy familiarity with our language when we don't use it enough. The weather in Christchurch was brilliant: early morning frosts following by clear blue skies and mildish temperatures. The weather seemed to coax the neighbor's brown cat out of the house and he came to visit, which delighted my daughter who just loves cats. Bit of a nuisance that the cat likes to dig up the plants in the front garden and shit in the garden at the back of the section. Oh, and one of the highlights of the trip: we got the watch the All Blacks win every match they played while we were there. The toughest match was against the Pacific Islands team as they were brutal! In the match between the All Blacks and England I watch the most foolish display, as an English player slammed his right knee as hard as he could into the back of an All Black, right in front of the camera! Needless to say he was sent off. On the flight back to Singapore the Captain announced the result of the match between the All Blacks and the Wallabies (Australia), 16 - 7 to the All Blacks, and a small cheer went up from the All Black fans. Rugby is a daft game when you think about it, but you have got to admire the guts of the players. There is no way I would pick up a ball and run at a line of burly men intent on slamming me to the ground. However, whether you like the game or not, it is good to see your national team win! I also enjoyed cooking on my own kitchen. Might sounds daft but I am sure all the women out there will understand that there is nothing so special as your own kitchen. Got to admit that getting my bread to rise in Singapore's heat is a lot easier than getting it to rise in NZ's winter chill! I guess what I want to say here is: cherish what you have. I am now back in Singapore with my husband and children, but without those friends and family whom I can talk with for hours and hours. I have friends in Singapore, yes, but they are not like my friends in NZ. Cherish the sunshine, I live in an Asian county, where I am assailed by television and newspaper advertisements that constant highlight my flaws. I am a woman. Hence, according to these advertisements, I am supposed to be obsessed (not just concerned) with the size of my bust, my figure, the paleness of my skin, and my BMI (body mass index). Maybe that's why I don't quite fit in here. My bust is...well, it just is. For whose benefit would I even consider enlarging it? I do not oggle at other woman's chests when I am out and about (although the advertisements seem to insist all women do) and compare mine to hers. They are in proportion to the rest of me. My figure...I'm a New Zealand size 12, which I consider pretty good. I'm not skin and bone and I'm not obese. I have freckles. So what. Why on earth would I consider bleaching my skin or piling on skin whitening cream in order to make them go away or hide them? They are a part of me, and I am not ashamed of them. I also do not believe that anyone should hide in the shadows incase some sunlight dares to give them a tan. The point of all this is to get one message across. We are perfect as we are and we should stop trying to live up to some image created by a vain, materialistic person. (The most stupid thing would be if the image had actually been decided upon by a man!) I have not once seen an advertisement encouraging men to have a 'manhood' enlargement. How would the men feel if suddenly the television and newspapers were plastered with advertisements that made them feel inadequate? How come only the women are told to have their breasts enlarged, their body shrunk, their skin whitened, and their BMI dragged into the anorexic zone? Why are people made to feel inadequate? Even children are pushed, propelled and driven to study study study so that they can be an 'A' scoring student, because anything less is not considered to be good enough. They are afraid of failing before they have even begun to live. We have bred a society that looks for faults, that looks for things to criticize, when we should have done the opposite When are people going to be encouraged to be happy with who they are? When is the media going to stop making people feel as if they are not good enough? When is the media going to start praising the human spirit? When we start showing some human spirit!
When are we all going to stand up
in the morning, look in the mirror and say "I am happy being me! I
LOVE being me!"
Okay, let me see if I have this
straight: some Iraqis brutally executed an American because some
American soldiers were humiliating Iraqi prisoners? But we are,
apparently supposed to all forget what the Iraqis did to American
civilians prior to that? Did the American soldiers make
a movie about their abuse? Did they hold a man down, take a knife
and cut his head off? COULD the American soldiers
have been a little bit pissed off about the brutal treatment
afforded to some American civilians, in which they were beaten,
murdered, set of fire, hacked up, dragged through the streets and
dangled from a bridge? You tell me, who committed the
more evil act? Who showed that they had evolved no further than an
animal? And then imagine this: when we
die and we go home to the world of Soul we will be gifted the
opportunity to understand everything we did. And for those who
humiliated the prisoners they get to fully experience how those
prisoners felt, physically, mentally and emotionally. And for those
that brutally murdered the Americans, you too will get to experience
that FULLY, you will feel what they felt both physically, mentally
and emotionally, you will LIVE what you did to them. What you do to another you do
to yourself. To the butchers of these
crimes I ask you: who created EVERYTHING? God/Allah did. You should
KNOW this! So all you did was brutally murder another of God's
creations. Do you honestly think that God would look down with any
joy on what you did? If you do then you have absolutely no
comprehension of your own God/Allah. You slaughtered God's creation.
There will be no reward, there will be no joy, there will be no
praise in heaven. You committed an EVIL act. You will understand,
fully, when you return to Heaven, a place that we ALL go to when we
die. When I look at pictures of
Iraqis prisoners being humiliated all I see now is that American
man. To the murderers, you have created a situation in which what
was being done to the prisoners pales in comparison to what you did
to an innocent man. Where many people once felt sympathy, now they
have no sympathy for you. Why do you not BUILD your
country up instead of trying to tear it down? If you want the
American's out of your country, build it up, get things working,
make it such that there will be no need for the American's to be
there. Currently you are pro-longing their presence. To tear down and destroy is
easy, to build up and make strong is hard. To the parents of the murdered
American. I am so sorry. Please know that his suffering did not last
long, and that he is home in Heaven. It is only the physical body
that perishes, not the Soul, and the SOUL is the essence of who we
are. You son is not dead, only the vehicle he chose to experience
through has died.
The issue I want to talk about is:
are we pressurizing our children too much? We want them to do well in school
so that they can get a good job one day and have all the toys they could
ever want (car, computer, stereo etc). Our children want to do well too
because we have told them how important it is to not fail. But it is school, and it is
childhood. Why are children going home from school loaded down with
homework assignments that take all their time to do? Children get home
from school, pull out the books and work on the maths assignment, then
the music assignment, then the health assignment and then they have the
revision work to do for the upcoming exams. Some children work quicker
than others, some are more academically inclined than others, but I have
to ask why are they having to do so much work? Why cannot the syllabus be covered
in class time at school so that t he children get to rest and play when
they get home? Have we jam-packed so much stuff into the educational
syllabus that it is simply not possible to get through it all? (In a
decimal age, in a decimal country, why is my child learning how
to multiply fractions???) Have we reached the point where we
are overwhelming our children with an unrealistic amount of work? Is it time to take a look at what
we are teaching our children and decide what is truly important and what
is not? If children spend all day on school work, both at school and at
home, then they get no break, and they get not time to appreciate what
they are learning. Work work work, that is all they see and know. Work
work work. One assignment after another and then the next week a whole
new set of assignments. Do the teachers actually talk to each other and
discuss who is giving what assignments out or are they so insular that
they don't even consider that perhaps this week every teacher
gave out assignments for their students? It's too much, and we are creating
a generation of children who are not getting the opportunity to enjoy
their childhood. Yes, the world needs doctors and
lawyers, but we also need chefs, carpet layers, plumbers, mechanics,
dress makers, artists, poets, shop assistants, painters, delivery truck
drivers, office workers. We don't all have to be brilliant, we
don't all have to score top marks in every exam we ever sit. If
we do: great! If we don't: so what? I am a writer. Of what use would a
Masters in Engineering or a medical degree be to me? What would it
matter if I aced every high school test I ever sat? My role has always
been clear in my heart: a burning desire to write. That is who I am and
that is what I do. If my burning desire was to build
bridges then that Masters in Engineering might be exactly what I needed.
We have all we need to be and do
what it is that we long to be and do. Our natural inclinations and
fascinations are clear indications of what we are perfectly suited for. The only maths I need to know is:
if there are six people at the dinner table, how much apple pie am I
going to get? It is vital that our children do
not over-pressurize themselves, and it is vital that we stop
heaping too much work and expectations onto them. Let our children have a
childhood full of laughter and play, not full of stress and
homework. Is our
fascination with SMSing leading to a downfall in the English
language? I have only recently learnt
how to SMS--who ever knew there was predictive texting!--and I have
discovered something about myself: It doesn't matter how short
the message or how small the screen, there is no excuse for poor
grammar or poor punctuation! For the life of me I cannot
bring myself to abbreviate, and when I first came across... ...I was not ever sure what I
was reading--perhaps they had trouble spelling or pressing the
correct keys? When a cell phone comes with
software that allows the correct choice of letters and punctuation
is there really any excuse for not using those facilities? Are we creating a generation
of people who abbreviate everything they write? Are we demeaning the
English language by allowing this 'SMS syndrome' to infect our
youth? Is it time we introduced
courses on SMS etiquette? Should we be promoting 'SMS good English'? I can already feel that we are
on a slippery downward slope with our blasé attitude towards SMS
language. It is time we stood up and demanded that 'good English' be
spoken, written and SMSed! There is no excuse for poor
English, anywhere!!! Harsh
words? Well how about this: much of
mankind need a damn good spanking (and I don't mean in any kinky
sense). We talk about peace, we talk
about our God, and then what do people do: Terrorists demand that other
nations do NOT support the USA. Well, that's fine, but since USA is
a huge trading partner and will not trade well with those who bite
their hand, other nations will continue to support the USA in one
way or another. Why? So that they can trade their goods, so that
their people have jobs, so that their people have homes, so that
their people have food to eat! Terrorists would rather that
THEY were the dictator of the world, that THEIR demands were met out
of fear, and they do not care about people losing their jobs, their
homes, their loved ones, they do not care if people have no food to
eat, they do not care about the economy of a country collapsing into
ruin. Terrorists are not interested
in what comes after THEIR lifetime, they do not care about the
future, they care only for fear, death and misery. But, there is one thing that
all terrorists must remember: when you murder (and there IS no other
name for it) you kill someone's son or daughter...and for that no
parent will ever forgive you no matter what justification you utter. If you kill in the name of
God, who created ALL that is, ever was and ever will be, if you kill
in the name God who created ALL things, then you slaughter HIS
creation, you slaughter what HE made. There is no justification in
the universe for such actions. People are being murdered all
over the world for this reason and that reason...and it has to stop!
You HAVE to take responsibility for what you are doing, ALL of you! Until ALL people of this world
take responsibility for what they are doing, it will never end. Does
killing bring joy and prosperity? No it brings grief and fear.
Killing does not bring anything useful to this world at all. I will sit down with Nelson
Mandela and listen, but I will not sit down with a terrorist. The
world remembers Mahatma Gandhi and the world will remember Nelson
Mandela even after he is gone, because they were great men, and they
used peaceful methods. These methods made a greater impact on the
world that a terrorists bomb. The world listens to great men...we do
not listen to terrorists and bullies. When you kill, you kill
yourself. When you steal, you steal from
yourself. When you terrorize another,
you terrorize yourself. When you extend a hand of
peace, you extend a hand of peace to yourself. It would rank as one of the
dumbest, yet funniest, things I've read all week (clear indication that
I am amused easily and often). S-------e (a place in the Asian
region) apparently has one of the highest rates of older mothers in the
world, with women in their 30s having babies, rather than in their
20s--and 16% of those women having babies when they are over 35 years of
age. This is of notable concern to the Perinatal Society of S-------e.
One of their spokesmen said that 'We are not progressing in our birth
rate even with the governments financial bonuses...' And he also said this, which
I personally think is an absolute GEM!!! Can you imagine being called up to
do your national service? "Men to the left for army fatigues and sweat,
ladies to the right for negligees and compulsory breeding." Yes, the birth rate in S-------e
is low. You want to know why? It's not because couples here don't want
children, it's because they can't afford them. The cost of living here
is so high that both husband and wife have to work full time to earn
enough money, and the employers are so uncaring that they have staff
working long hours and frequently not leaving until 7 or 8 at night if
not much later than that. Even if these people could afford to have a
baby, if they still had to work long hours then when would they see
their baby? The answer is: they wouldn't. The baby would be raised by
the maid or the grandparents. Can you imagine reaching your golden years
and then having to raise a family? Couples were criticized by the
spokesman for not having babies in their thirties. Well, tell me how
many people in their 20s these days have been able to afford a home in
S--------e and been prepared to give up their career (something they
were pushed towards all their life by an unrelenting education system
that demands 'A's 'A's 'A's and more 'A's and you must have a career
too!) They are all pushed to be top of the class, to be successful in
all that they do, now you want them to chuck it in while they are in
their 20s and breed? That's hypocritical. I'm a woman. If you tell me
it is my national duty to breed, I will hit you! How dare any man ever tell women
that it is their duty to do 'national service' and breed more citizens! National Service...I suppose the
next move is to pair people up with a partner that is likely to
contribute to a healthy and intelligent baby that will also contribute
to the nation. Better still, why not try cloning the best and the
brightest! Or how about this: remove the eggs
from pubescent girls and the sperm from pubescent boys and store them.
Then, when they are ready to breed, bring them out, fertilize the egg
with the sperm and plant them in an old uterus! Like I said, it was the funniest
thing I've read all week!
The French government wants to ban
the wearing of Moslem head scarves in school. They also want to ban all
other religious symbols--though apparently only large crosses. What happens if someone decides
that the cross you are wearing is not small and is in fact a large
cross? Will we be reduced to saying,
"it's just a piece of jewelry, I don't really believe in it or
anything". It's just junk jewelry,man. I wear a cross. It is a symbol of
my walk with Jesus in this life. It reminds me of the existence of all
of the Ascended Masters. If I was a student I would wear this cross
under my uniform, but if it slipped out I would not want to be told it
is considered too large and I must remove it. I don't want anyone to tell me
what clothes I can wear and what jewelry I can wear. That is a blatant
abuse of my human rights. However, as a student I always accepted
that I must wear the school uniform correctly. Yes, some terrorists are Moslems,
and that scares people because they now believe that if one Moslem is a
terrorist then they ALL must be terrorists. But that is not the case. A
few Moslems are terrorists, and so are a few Christians, Jews and
Catholics. Fear has caused people to be wary of Moslems, and this has
made Moslems targets for abuse and violence. Even in schools there exist
varying levels of abuse amongst the students. Wearing a Moslem headscarf
identifies a person as a Moslem. I suppose the next thing the
French will do is stop all people at the airport and sea ports and tell
them to remove their head scarves or don't bother disembarking from the
plane or ship? School uniforms are important, I
understand that, but so is religious freedom. Can a school ban Moslems from
attending? No. But they probably can dictate that the correct
school uniform be worn, with no exceptions. If a Moslem girl chooses to
attend that school then surely she must be governed by the same rules as
the other students? If wearing the Moslem head scarf
is important to her, then perhaps it would be a better solution for her
to attend an Islamic school or a school that has no school uniform. What if there are no Islamic
school in the area? Well, if the wearing of the head scarf is of
paramount importance then move house, and live nearer an Islamic
school--people move to be closer to a school all the time, be it a top
school, a Catholic school, or a private school. What if there are no Islamic
school in the whole country? If the Islamic community in a country is
large enough, then they should form their own schools, so that their own
dress codes can be freely observed. What if the Islamic schools are
not considered to be as good as the local schools? Well, what is it that
is important, the education or that the head be covered? Maybe some
people just have to choose. Maybe you can't have both. So, basically what I am saying is:
there's no easy solution to this problem. School uniform rules should
apply to all students without exception. And yet, no one can
stomp of the religious rights of another person. Why do Moslems have a dress code?
To protect their woman from sexual assault, to cover them up so that
they do not tempt a man. I can understand that there was a time when man
was such a crass creature that he ran around raping women and claiming
'it was not my fault, she tempted me with her beautiful body and her
luscious hair', hence something had to be done. Since it was impossible
to get the men to accept responsibility for their own actions, it was
decided that the women, from puberty onwards (I think), must cover
themselves, and not reveal any part of themselves that might be
considered 'tempting.' Fair enough. But times have changed. Men are
punished for rape. Women try to teach their sons to look after the girls
and treat them well. No longer is it acceptable to say 'It was not my
fault, she tempted me'. In this era all people must take
responsibility for their actions. Does wearing a head scarf really
make that much difference? Maybe yes, maybe no. But
Christian or not, I would never insist that my children wear a cross to
school. My confusion stems from an
emphatic belief that if we have a dream and we believe in that dream
with every ounce of our faith and strength, and if we commit to that
dream, totally, and if we keep working at it and working at it and
working at it, our dream will come true, it will become
real. Hence, you can imagine my
confusion when I watch people trying out for American Idol who hold such
a dream, and yet, when the television viewers hear them they have to
admit that either there is something horribly wrong with the television
reception, or...this person really, I mean really, cannot sing! If each of us are born with a
dream, a burning ambition, as a kind of life guidance, what are we
supposed to do if we dream of being a singer and are then told that we
cannot sing? I have to say, after listening to
four episodes of the current American Idol season, that I firmly believe
some people have grabbed the wrong dream! They have latched onto
something that is not their greatest strength. Yet, I have heard
some contestants who have potential and if they commit to that
dream and work really really hard then they may yet make that dream come
true. Not all singers end up with
recording contracts earning vast sums of money. Some are meant to be the
sweetest voice in the church choir, or the best singer in the local
band. And there is no shame or failure in that. There is only success
in that. Your dream will always be based
around your greatest strengths--not your weakest. It is not about money
or fame, it is about passion, about a burning inner desire. Many singers tried out for
American Idol who sincerely cannot sing. Tape yourself and listen, truly
listen to how you sound. If you still believe you are brilliant, ask
other people and be polite if they think you sound terrible. And if you
are asked to do the same for another person, be honest and polite in
your comments. American Idol makes thousands of
people feel like they have failed, and it makes the final two or three
feel like absolute winners. The difference is: the final group sound
like absolute winners, they sound so perfect when they sing.
Singing is their dream, and
singing in one of their greatest strengths. And, more importantly,
singing is a way for them to touch the hearts of the rest of humanity.
My way is not through singing, and maybe yours isn't either. Maybe your
way is through a hug, counseling, nursing, serving food with a smile,
fixing things for people, solving crimes. You have a strength, a way for
you to touch humanity, and it will be a gift you have always had. Try to
figure out what it is, and then let that guide you. |
|||
|
© Robyn M Speed |
