Tag: health

Decluttering lessons: part 2

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This follows on from my musings after helping to clear out my parents’ house.  There were many things that I realised and I kept on writing notes to myself as I reached certain milestones or achieved a key goal.  Most important was how was I feeling?  Did I feel good?  Did I feel sad?  Did I feel ‘lighter’?  Did I feel free? Did I feel guilt?  Actually as I moved on through the process, I felt all these emotions.  One of the worst moments of hat clear-up was finding cheques worth a lot of money, cheques that had not been cashed and now were worthless.  How much my mother had saved and scrimped; and yet so much money that was already there had simply wasted away because we hadn’t found them.  And the sadness from seeing her pristine and unread books given to her as marriage gifts now being bitten by rats which also had to be thrown out.  So from my notes here are some points-

  1. Fear of deprivation– Some of the stuff my mother was storing, like plastic bags, were not really needed- she had so many of these.  Despite feeling angry and frustrated at this, I realised that my mother’s needs to hold on to things stemmed on from her very deprived childhood.  I had to be sympathetic and understand where she came from.  But there was also a fear that my mother felt that if she let go of these things, she wouldn’t get anymore (again stemming from her childhood).  So my solution was to put all the plastic bags in front of her and ask her how many did she really want?  Could we get rid of some that were torn or dusty?  In the end, slowly, after selecting a few useful ones, my mother let go off most of the bags.
  2. Delayed action– My mother put things away for another time to do-, so one day she was going to sort out her children’s clothes.  In the years that followed, her children grew up and moved away from not only her home but also country.  Now that my mother is old, she doesn’t have time.  I wondered how much clutter accumulates because one day we are going to tackle it- receipts, clothes, etc, etc. As my parents have grown older and less mobile, the growing clutter was actually becoming dangerous to them in their daily lives.  After I explained that to her, she realised that she and we were at a stage in our lives where the things she’d saved up were of no use to either us or her and she was able to let go.
  3. Achieved function– Each thing that comes into our lives has a function.  So the purpose of the envelope is to bring to your a letter or bill.  Once that thing is has done its job, then you have to let it go. I have heard that Thoreau used to look at something once and then chuck it if it was of now use.  Now in our current age, we can’t just chuck things like that- we need to sort it out as most of our waste is not biodegradable anymore.  So we need time to do that and we should but let it go as you can.  It is now possible to recycle everything.  Give away unused presents.  This was the most useful thing I learnt about getting rid of clutter for others.

 

Happy clearing!

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How to deal with bullies

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I am dealing with my 12 year old son’s bullies right now.  For many weeks, I have not seen him smile and he looked tired all the time.  He was being bullied with physical, racist and homophobic (yes, even that age, bullies use all sorts of excuses) abuse in school.  Initially I told him to ignore it and deal with it with humour.  After he was set upon by the gang of boys last week, I was livid and complained to the school.  I also found out that my son hadn’t told me about the attack because he was ashamed.  Here is what I have learnt in the last ten days-

  1. Bullies, like other people, change when they want to.  They won’t change because you want them to.  Don’t stay with a bully thinking that they will change.
  2. Bullies cannot be appeased by good humour and manners.  This brings out more of their ugliness. Do not associate with bullies- get away from them and leave them to deal with the emptiness of their lives.
  3. Bullies only listen to fear, so put fear into them by reporting it.  Transmit it widely because the only thing the bullies care about is their image and their power.  Bullies do not like reciprocal or equal relationships.
  4. Let children and all vulnerable people know that bullying is never okay and never to sit in silence.  Bullies love it when people take it without complaining. Never be ashamed of reporting bullying.
  5. Build up the broken self esteem of the bullied person with love and support.  Find other people who can support the bullied person. Build a fortress of love and teach that person to always respect themselves.

Small wins

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I did couple of things last and this month that I would have never considered doing before.  These are small things and perhaps not very significant to anyone else.  But for me doing these opened my eyes to the possibility of change in my physical and emotional life.

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The first was climbing this hill in Edinburgh.  The guidebook said that it would take 20 minutes but it took me over one hour, that too after resting many times.  There were people climbing- some women even wore heels!  For me, getting up Arthur’s seat (250 metres high) was a major challenge.  I was so tired after that that I have taken three weeks to recover. Probably I won’t ever do something like that again but I have done it once. That was so empowering!

The second thing was I cut my own hair. I watched endless videos of hair cutting and steeled myself for how I could end up looking as the result was right there for everyone to see!  I realised I had to have this courage and belief in myself- the same as climbing that hill in Edinburgh.  Both are different things and yet are very similar in their emotion.  Both felt very empowering.  Everyone is different- and for everyone, there are new things to try out.  Now every month, I have decided to do one new thing.

creativity from rubbish

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Creativity comes from all sorts of places and things that inspire or make connections.  David, my friend, who has a problem in his hips, was visiting a friend when he spotted a back frame of a ‘Thonet‘ chair, waiting to be put into the rubbish dump.  A trainee furniture designer had been making it for practice and had left it behind.  David asked his friend if he could take it and she said yes.  On the way back home, as the crowded train swayed back and forth it , he realised that he could put his weight on that frame and it supported him.  He also realised that when a bus braked, it was good to put it at the side so that it steadied him.  So he put some plastic feet on the two ends and there it was, a sexy curved support instead of the awful grey walking frames used.  If he didn’t need it, then he could put it on his shoulders, so it is easily portable.  Here is David showing the different ways he uses the chair back.

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For me, the main lesson here is that you can have a problem but you need to put it in the back burner of your mind.  Then slowly and unexpectedly, you will find a solution in your own ‘Eureka’ moment.   Archimedes shouted”Eureka! Eureka!”and ran out naked in excitement after he noticed that the water level in his bath rose and he made the connection that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged.  Friedrich Kekulé’s theory on the structure of benzene, which proved to be correct, was apparently influenced by the image of a snake eating its own tail.  Einstein also arrived at his theory of relativity when he was watching a train move as he sat in another.  There are many more examples of such moments- from artists, scientists to inventors and engineers- who have made connections to arrive at solutions.  Where 2+2=5 or more!

The other thing I noticed was that it is the creative mind that notices and makes the connections. When David walked in, I was the first person to notice his innovative walking frame.  No one else commented or looked at it.  David said that on the street, it takes a certain kind of person, to come up to him and ask him about it.  So I guess, if you have noticed something creative in another person, then it is most likely you have the same creativity yourself.

Creative traditions

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Every country has age old traditions that manifest themselves creatively in days of celebration.  But these traditions have become commercialised.  So in an age of mass produced goods and of artificial perfection where the sign of hands and any ‘errors’ have been carefully removed, it is good to make things by hand and make them not too perfect.  Easter offers one of those occasions where the hideous and unhealthy tradition of factory made ever larger chocolate eggs have captured children and parents’ hearts and stomachs.  On the other hand, many traditional Easter foods have been home made, free from additives and perhaps more healthy, if not entirely so.

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Having an Armenian link in my family, I decided this year to make traditional Armenian Easter eggs alongside a traditional meal.  Making these Easter eggs involves using onion skins, turmeric and other natural dyes to colour eggs.  Here are some of my efforts.  I collected red onion skins- shopkeepers were happy to get rid of them.  I also put in some chilli flakes that I was not using (these also make the water red).  I boiled these for about twenty minutes and left it to cool overnight.  In the morning, I pasted some leaves I found in the garden on the raw eggs using water.  I used organic hens and duck eggs.  Then I put the eggs inside cut up old stockings and boiled them further for about 20 minutes. After removing them from the stocking, I left them to cool.  When they were cold to touch, I polished them with some olive oil to make them shine.  Even though the duck eggs were less successful, the over all effect of mottled colour with silhouettes of leaves, was charming on both types of eggs.  We ate those eggs with some goats cheese, yoghurt, traditional bread, olives and tomato and onion salad.  My children had been given some of the shop bought chocolate eggs but after eating lunch, they did not feel like eating those!  What did I do with the waste?  The skins were put in the compost and the leftover liquid was used to dye an old silk blouse.  No waste- a perfect end to Easter holidays!

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A hero

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I have not been to any David Bowie concert but his music has existed alongside my growth as a person. His talents, not just as a ground breaking musician but as someone who is as a holistic as an artist can be (poet, actor, director, producer, writer, dancer, etc), has been so inspiring. Bowie was a well-read and informed artist who drew upon a wealth of influences such as Tibetan Buddhism, German Expressionism, Mime, Japanese culture, history and Jungian psychology. He has often described himself as a ‘magpie’ and he was able to synthesise diverse ideas and use them in his art. Coming from a poor working class family, it must have taken immense courage to proclaim his ideas and intent. As the philosopher Michael Foley says, ‘Appreciating art is not passive but active, not reverential but familiar, not a worthy act of self improvement but an audacious and cunning ruse. To seek out what stimulates and makes use of it- this is the work of art.’ And Bowie was a master at this and so his entire life became a work of art.

From becoming totally immersed in his various personas- Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke, etc- to his campaigning for others- from Tibet to physically disabled children and to his perceptive thoughts on the internet, death, illness, etc. he comes across as a total person. He acknowledged his mistakes without arrogance or defensiveness (watch his interviews on Youtube) and his fears and died a hero. There was no drama about his death unlike his pop personality life. He even made his death into a work of art and then took his bow, humbly and quietly. I never realised how much influence he had on me until last Sunday when it was announced that he had gone. He wasn’t perfect but he was a hero. And most importantly, his life has taught us that we can be heroes too.  Here is a video of him tapping out his song ‘Heroes’ using a bottle cap on his shoe, raising money for physically challenged children at the Bridge School concert, 1996.

thanking a hero

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I have not been to any David Bowie concert but his music has existed alongside my growth as a person.  His talents, not just as a ground breaking musician but as someone who is as a holistic as an artist can be (poet, actor, director, producer, writer, dancer, etc), has been so inspiring.  Bowie was a well-read and informed artist who drew upon a wealth of influences such as Tibetan Buddhism, German Expressionism, Mime, Japanese culture, history and Jungian psychology. He has often described himself as a ‘magpie’ and he was able to synthesise diverse ideas and use them in his art.  Coming from a poor working class family, it must have taken immense courage to proclaim his ideas and intent.  As the philosopher Michael Foley says, ‘Appreciating art is not passive but active, not reverential but familiar, not a worthy act of self improvement but an audacious and cunning ruse. To seek out what stimulates and makes use of it- this is the work of art.’ And Bowie was a master at this and so his entire life became a work of art.

From becoming totally immersed in his various personas- Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke, etc- to his campaigning for others- from Tibet to physically disabled children and to his perceptive thoughts on the internet, death, illness, he comes across as a total person. He acknowledged his mistakes without arrogance or defensiveness (watch his interviews on Youtube) and his fears and died a hero. There was no drama about his death unlike his pop personality life. He even made his death into a work of art and then took his bow, humbly and quietly.  I never realised how much influence he had on me until last Sunday when it was announced that he had gone. He wasn’t perfect but he was a hero. And most importantly, his life has taught us that we can be heroes too.

Bowie in his own words, spoken to graduating music students at Berklee College, Massachusetts, in 1999.

“Music has given me over 40 years of extraordinary experiences. I can’t say that life’s pains or more tragic episodes have been diminished because of it.
But it’s allowed me so many moments of companionship when I’ve been lonely and a sublime means of communication when I wanted to touch people.
It’s been both my doorway of perception and the house that I live in. I only hope that it embraces you with the same lusty life force that it graciously offered me.
Thank you very much and remember, if it itches, play it.”

an investigation

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DVreeland quote (from a Facebook post by Rose McGowan)

To date, nearly 12,000 people have liked this quote and almost 60,000 people have shared it this Facebook post from Rose McGowan. I found out later that the quote wasn’t from Diana Vreeland.  What led me to investigate was that somehow it didn’t quite ring true for the personality of Diana Vreeland that I had read about. That quote had the twinges of sour grapes.  Diana Vreeland would have been far too intelligent for that.  As a fashion editor, she found something good and attractive in everyone she met. She had the knack of highlighting a quality or physical feature that an art director with less imagination might try to hide (for example, focussing on Barbara Streisand’s nose for a Vogue cover).  That quote made no sense to me at all. I tried to see if it made universal sense ( just try substituting prettiness with ugliness and female with male) and no, it didn’t.  I asked myself, ‘What if a person is born pretty?  Or wants to look good?’ Even animals have an instinct to groom and look better.

Diana Vreeland said in her biopic, ‘The eye has to travel’ that there is only one good life- and that is the life you want and you can only make it yourself. She made the best of what she had and the best out of the people she worked with- models, photographers, art directors etc.  She was a hard taskmaster and sometimes not a pleasant person to work with.  Her own children resented her neglect of them and her husband was off having affairs.  However as far as attractiveness went, she knew the way.  She herself wasn’t born pretty but she made the best of what she had and is remembered for her striking looks and fashion sense.  So I wondered why would have said something like that and investigated it via the ‘Quoteinvestigator’- http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/03/prettiness/

The truth is that quote was actually lifted from a 2006 blog post, ‘A Dress A Day’, by Erin McKean, (included within the original context of what Erin wrote it will all makes sense)- “I’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you. But in the hierarchy of importance, pretty stands several rungs down from happy, is way below healthy, and if done as a penance, or an obligation, can be so far away from independent that you may have to squint really hard to see it in the haze.” I agree with Erin McKean.  Prettiness is a subjective quality and should not be an obligation.  Health and happiness are far more important.  A person’s real beauty comes from within.  Diana Vreeland loved life and was extraordinarily curious- that made her beautiful. Why compare yourself with another and judge your looks- follow the example of Diana Vreeland and accept yourself.  Just be happy to be who are- you are not your looks! PS- And always question things you see on Facebook- that way you learn a lot!

Inspirational words from a terminally ill architect

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After watching this, as an architect who has suffered from stroke, it reinforced my desire never to miss a single opportunity to express gratitude, help others and be happy in every way that I can.  Also, very importantly it has taught me to follow my heart.