The Sacredness of the Sentence

Sentences are fun. They're a great time. They don't need to be complicated. They can be short. Or they can be really long and rattle on about all sorts of things. The main thing is that you love every sentence you write. Sentences are like people. They need care, love, attention and understanding. Each one wants to be unique, distinct and express themselves. Some writers treat sentences poorly. They treat them as a means to an end. This is wrong. A sentence is an end in itself. Just like how Kant believed everybody was an end in themselves. To be an end. Demands a sentence or a person is never reduced to a means to achieving a desirable end. I may desire to write an essay. I may desire to write a poem. I may desire to write a great deal of things longer than a sentence. But the sentence is everything. A sentence is valuable as a human life.

You don't throwaway a life, ever. The same is true of a sentence. You don't throw one away for poem, a page or an essay. Because if you do, something irretrievable is lost. Instead, if you nurture every sentence and rally them into something bigger than themselves without sacrificing any sentence that wasn't beyond glory. You will find your work is masterful. The masterwork of human society is to construct a beautiful world where every person is allowed to add to society without being humiliated, exploited or denied the means to attaining their true aspirations and dreams. I believe we are making progress toward this lofty goal. But this goal  begins and ends with the human individual. And remember, a sentence is valuable as a human being. You either repair them, or lay them to rest, but all must be nurtured.

Sunday with the Nieces - An uncles odyssey

Took the nieces out. It was tough; loud, running, tantrums, skin knees, singing, jumping ice creams, parks, climbing. I'm back home now. Resting in bed. Trying to rebuild. Flashbacks of the girls run through my head. They bounced like ping pong balls in all directions in the grocery store. An old man turned to me while standing near the $5 cucumbers and mutters: 'been there done that', with a cheeky smile caught in the crinkles of his face. I laugh, and chase after the girls while they speed around the corner. They're both to short to be seen from faraway. I shout back at the old man, as I race onward: 'I'm there uncle not their father! '. He doesn't hear me. I don't believe what I say. Though it feels good to say it in a bid to dispel, lazy, Pakeha, OK Boomer, assumptions where one only helps raise one's own immediate children. Life for some, I guess.

Next, I'm clicking myself into the shotgun passenger seat of our car. Then all hell breaks loose - over two small 'ready salted' chippie packets. Despite this, I'm happy - we're heading home. They'll be their mother's problem, soon as we walk through the door they'll be pulling at her dress. And, like an artful dodger I'll slink back into peaceful annoynomity. For an hour or so, I'll listen to classical music and try to rearrange the contents of my brain, although, it always seems to end in failure, haha.

Date night at Barilla Dumplings

Went on a date earlier in the week. I meet someone outside on the street and we had a laugh. Next day we went to a Chinese restaurant that sold dumplings. I managed to crack some good jokes and make my date laugh. She lives close to where I do. It's looking good for a second date, but you never can tell. I hope something fun like this happens for you too. If you see someone you like and they show interest in you. Be brave and chat to them and see what happens. Being open to making new connections is the first step to finding love. As you go about your daily life and interact with others, try to help them. Then, leave some room in your life for the unexpected, and love might just come a-knocking.

Meet my therapist 'Woebot' who is an A.I app who loves CBT therapy techniques

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woebot Hey, everyone. I just wanted to recommend this fun, supportive, A.I app called 'Woebot'. It helps one learn, improve and grow by understanding CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). I'm finding the app very helpful and just wanted to let you know about it. Maintaining a strong, robust sense of mental health is important. Especially, when one's 'emotional weather' becomes a bit stormy. Eliminating unnecessary 'cognitive distortions' is the secret key to unlocking the door to a happier, more fulfilling life. 💪🌞🙏 Moss

Mindfulness in a Field under a tree

A photo of a field in Auckland, New Zealand, taken during the winter of 2020 at midday. Standing under a canopy of a large tree the world looks different. One feels different. One sees the world through ancient  eyes of ancestors long departed. Who once hid from tigers and lived mindfully in tune with nature and not apart from her. Every fallen leaf. Every ripening bud. Every blade of green. Every human being. Everything, everywhere, connecting as one.

Chocolate Mindfulness Meditation - A brief description

Practising mindfulness is as easy as allowing a piece of chocolate to slowly melt in your mouth. While avoiding the mental strain and physical distractions of everyday life. One might think of it as micro-dosing on chocolate to improve your mood. Mindfulness can be visually pictured as a well in the ground, from which one draws forth the refreshing water of inner peace, by immersing oneself in the here and now. It can be difficult to escape the insistent chatter of one's mind. One route of escape is to embrace the senses, such as smell, touch, taste, etc. That's why chocolate helps, as it connects a person consciously with their senses. Allowing them to escape the draining escapades of a noisy, tiresome mind. When you focus on the experience of tasting and not just eating chocolate with a strong sense of determination (laughs). It can prove to be an all-consuming event. And a mind consumed by blissful sensory data allows one to take a much-deserved break from mental worries. Further still, a wonderful paradox arises if one practices chocolate mindfulness meditation. One can find it no longer necessary to devour vast quantities of chocolate mindlessly on the couch. This is because by consciously slowing down and savouring the luscious moreishness of chocolate - it's easier to eat less. Because, what one does taste, is consciously experienced and remembered more effectively by the brain, soul, mind and deep self. Well, at least that's the theory. ;)

Source:
 Elizabeth Scott, MS, 

'H 

ow to Enjoy a Chocolate Meditation'. 

 Accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/y2wm72hu

Journal Entry - Moss Bioletti - 19th of July 2020

Late to rise. 
A sunny morning. Pouring over an essay on the 'heart of darkness'. Mindfully walking down Prospect terrace. Examining the bees, almost hidden, as they float about a plant with small blue flowers. The mowing of the grass, ready to ravage the new wrought green, but the thread is missing. Father helps thread the weed-eater with blueness so I can go about my business. A dead rat appears upon the lawn, I mow it, then I regret doing so, as a heinous smell wafts about, the small grey carcass with its matted grey hair, utterly dead, is horrendous. I retreat into the heart of darkness and read Conrad's classic aloud. The table is set, the meal is served, the horde descends, bellies are filled, and men recline back in their seats satiated as tremulous little nieces squawk about dessert. Whipped cream with berries, dark chocolate brownie and feather white cheese-cake is decimated by all. Dinner plates are cleared, children abscond, naps prove necessary. The rocking of the children, then of one's self. The electric blue stars appear twinkling familiar lullabies around slumbering quiet rooms.
Day's end.

Grateful to have finished reading John Updike's 'Rabbit, Run'

I'm happy to have finished reading John Updike's celebrated American novel: 'Rabbit, Run'. It took a concerted effort to finish the novel. First, I read half, before shelving it, only months later to return to the novel and finish it in a flurry of excitement.

As a novel, 'Rabbit, Run', feels as if it is a twisted re-imagining of the archetypal hero's journey - a deeply embedded narrative structure in countless ancient stories - but this time playing out in the context of modern America; a world where existential dread and human aimlessness are haphazardly kept in check by sexual instinct and the redeeming vastness of natural beauty.

The title of the work hints at the plot of the novel. The protagonist Harry 'Rabbit' Armstrong, more or less gives up one day and precedes to 'Run' away from the suffocating responsibilities of his dissatisfying life. Instead of living for others, Rabbit chooses to live for himself, but, as the sole arbiter of his life - problems quickly ensue. He doesn’t so much as descend into debauched hedonism, but instead, and much more infuriatingly, turns wandering mystic that humiliates and shames his family in the eyes of conservatives in small-town America.

Unsurprisingly, Rabbit finds himself in a precarious position within society. Alienated from his family, he is more or less forced to seek out friends, to lighten the burden of his, unrestrained, vertigo-inducing, experience of freedom. However, his new friends, just like his family, have inevitably been embroiled in a litany of drama and seemingly trivial, yet irresolvable problems. As a charitable reader, one can’t help but empathize with Rabbit, a man who is slowly besieged on all fronts, and not for want of trying to improve his life.

From a first reading, a crucial insight from the novel introduces itself to the reader; the ancient idea, that the experience of human life at its foundation, is a duality, necessarily constructed out of moments of exuberant euphoria and intolerable suffering. Such a timeless theme underscores the entirety of ‘Rabbit, Run’, creating a gripping, challenging and at times tearful reading experience.

Carl Jung and the Anticipatory aspect of Dreams

The renowned psychologist, Carl Jung, believed dreams were in some cases anticipatory of future life events. Troubling dreams could be interpreted as warnings from the unconscious mind to the conscious, about knowledge, circumstance and future obstacles that one should be aware of - but chose to deny and 'turn a blind eye to'. Whereas, the conscious mind was prone to censorship of important, although troubling, but ultimately crucial facts of how to navigate one's life, the same is not true of the unconscious mind, which operates largely in an uncensored manner while dreaming, telling one's conscious mind the full story and true extent of one's self-knowledge in a dream. Perhaps then, it may be wise, the next time one dreams of a train-wreck, failing to climb a mountain, or riding on out of control bus - that one doesn't immediately trivialize such visions as vacuous escapades of adventure or mindless anxiety. But, instead, and much more bravely, one entertains the thought that such dreams give one a glimpse into the future of things to come in life. Because, if it's true that the process of dreaming filters subconscious knowledge into the conscious mind, then this very process may affect and alter the course of our lives more than we care to acknowledge, especially, if we continue to deny the latent self-knowledge poorly hidden in our dreams.

Source: Carl Jung, 'Modern Man in Search of a Soul', chapter one, p1-11