by Ricky | Jan 5, 2021 | Alt
My sister Natalie’s kids have all went through phases in their teens where they have worn Fedoras. The hat with a brim so small it only covers have a person’s nose from the sun.
I don’t know whether they have felt wearing fedoras is appropriate because of their mum’s views on the hat. Or whether it’s something in their DNA that has expressed itself in such a way to make them feel that a fedora is appropriate for these modern times.
While many kids are rocking the curved brim baseball cap as they should at such an age. Some feel it appropriate to keep the brim unbent. Maybe these people have the same expression in their gene’s that have put them on such a dark path.
I have held my tongue these many years and watched as fedora wearers have sprung up in my own gene pool. I have stayed quiet hoping they would realise their own folly before the hat became more that a wrong choice of clothing, but a culture to rally around. One comprised of outcasts living on the fringes of mainstream sensible society.
Have a done too little. I blame myself. How could I have let this go on when doing anything rather than nothing would have been more appropriate. Is rehabilitation even possible for these members of the fold. It seems unlikely. I’m sorry boys that I have let you down and pray you turn from your wicked ways.
by Ricky | Jan 5, 2021 | Self-development
There is an immediacy in talking to the camera. The words have to flow straight off the top of your head. Unless rehearsed or written down you need to know what you’re talking about before you start talking. With writing, you can talk to the page and then go back and change what you have said to make it clearer. You have time to process what you’re trying to convey, you can have new ideas spring forth which add to the tapestry that is the article.
I’m always let down by what I say when I talk to the camera. The language is not on point with what I expect from a speaker. Just like writing you can catch ideas as they bubble up, or remember something pertinent to the story. Watching someone like Jordan Peterson talk so formulaic has ruined me for watching back my own bungling attempt at spoken free flow thought, where I often trail off and forget where I was up to.
If you’re a fast typer you can catch your thoughts free-flow like talking and keep up with your own train of thought. I’m not a fast typer and have to struggle with slowing down my thought process to keep up with my typing speed.
Audio dictation ‘speech to text’ is a way around this, but I still have to wait for the software to catch up with the speech as it tries to decipher my spoken language. I want to use this method more for first drafts, but I still find the process inhibiting. I’m hoping with practice I can better master this method. For now, it seems faster for me to use the keyboard.
by Ricky | Jan 5, 2021 | Alt
How quick the years go by. The last three years have gone past and that is but a tenth until I am 70. I hope I am as agile as my father at that age. It’s two days until Christmas and the year is Twenty-twenty. When I am my father’s age it will be twenty fifty. I hope I’m around to see it.
by Ricky | Dec 16, 2020 | Self-development
I had separated from my wife and I was living in a caravan at my parent’s house. It was my wife’s decision to separate and I was at a loss. I was very low. But this would be the catalyst for my growth and would put an end to my cycle of ego inflation.
The term used for growth caused by a traumatic event or situation is ‘Post Traumatic Growth’ or ‘PTG’. I’d experienced PTG four years earlier from a psychotic episode (I have schizophrenia). I had grown tremendously from the process but was still a very flawed individual.
The processes that caused my growth this second time was fourfold. One thing was that I’d been watching a lot of Jordan Peterson speak in his lectures on YouTube and took on the idea of incorporating my shadow (This deserves a post of its own so I’ll do a part III).
Another big lesson was that I started recording myself, talking about all my beliefs and ideas about what I’d come to realise were delusions. Talking about these things made me recognise I didn’t have a good grasp on what I thought and knew. And a lot of my ideas and beliefs were flawed. Low-resolution concepts that didn’t add up but bolstered my sense of self and what I thought was genius-level thinking.
This was hard to stomach, but it set me more firmly in reality and helped me to recognise my own limitations and faulty frameworks of thought. This would be the start of my journey into doing and expressing, rather than thinking and obsessing because I didn’t have to live up to the expectations of my own delusions which made me free to be more creative and honest.
A big part of my growth was just spending time with my parents and creating a better perspective on our relationship. I started seeing them as flawed human beings like everyone else and recognised they weren’t going to change. It made me accept and love them for who they are instead of wanting something from them to fill my esteem void.
I now have a great relationship with my parents and I don’t need for them to give me anything to feel strong in myself because I have given that to myself.
The final thing which brought it all together was a notion I’d call the Trinity which I’ll do a Part IV about. Incorporating my shadow, humanising my parents, recognising my own limitations, and adopting the trinity has made me a far better person.
The result was that while I used to be full of doubt and always questioning myself, needing others to affirm that I’m ok. I am now sure of myself, my bubble doesn’t burst and rather than it inflating to the point of delusion, I am now stable. Able to execute every day, and while I still have low periods I am far more functional, less reactive and not at war with those who challenge my self-belief.
I don’t need to win an ideological argument to feel strong, because now I am a winner despite the situation, because my sense of self doesn’t bottom out or inflate based on external circumstances. I know who I am and I know my limitations. I’ll explain what it means to incorporate your shadow in part III. Coming soon.
by Ricky | Dec 16, 2020 | Ricky
Goal 1: Finish my five books.
Goal 2: To write five blog posts a day, four times a week, 48 weeks of the year 2021. (960 blog posts for the year.)
Goal 3: Make 100 funny videos.
Goal 4: Publish the Adult Activity Book and sell it.
