Month: August 2017

Boundaries Challenge

How is it that we can direct ourselves to have boundaries?  How is that we can present and yet remain independent?

A golfer is bound by rules that determine how he drives the ball.  If a golf ball falls outside of play, a penalty is incurred.  I would attest there are boundaries in the real world which stop you in your tracks.

July 19, 2017

Boundaries contain, and keep you in the entirety of the whole amid which you are active.  Boundaries, I think today, are generally inflexible enough that your position remains in one spot, from which you are not to tread much further.  There is an art to subtly crossing them, and if you do persist in your advancement, you must continually drive back the idea that you are right about it, and that there has been no transgression.

Every individual is surely subject to boundaries.  We strive to maintain the largest boundaries which feel are ours, and we exercise caution when straying into new or otherwise unknown boundaries.  Each step we take is contained by boundaries, some of which exist solely in the mind of the one in motion, some of which are tangible outside that which the individual perceives.  It must be hoped it is evident you are undertaking the challenge of crossing them.

It is a grid, I think, that keeps us feeling “safe.”  Often, we are a part of a structure that is tacitly organized.  There are enough of us interested in remaining in place that we are evading the more turbulent sorts of disorder.

We count on others to remain regulated and to be interested in being regulated.  The grid is laden on us so that we have fewer problems by which we manage ourselves.  These grid phenomena are common to us.

DSCF8451

We feel we thrive if we see life in similar terms to what I am discussing as an advantage.  We enjoy ourselves best if we are cooperative with one another to keep us in check.  We know that if we tire of our environment, we are permitted to move on.

However, the most we readily accomplish is that we trade our circumstances, which keep us staying put, for similar though fresher digs.  Wherever are, we most often choose to remain inside the unit amid which we are already prospering, because we respect the place we’ve reached.  We enjoy what we have because there are so many chances to improve it.

It is here that we grow.  Boundaries can be creative.  Often, boundaries attain cohesion because so many people evince similar behavior.

More often than not, common characteristics among people mean we participate in similar activities at the same time and in the same way.  We check our boundaries, and we exercise them.

If you appreciate these ideas, you are welcome to click “Like” on this post and/or click “Follow.”  Comments are welcome as well.  Thank you for looking at my blog!  Good luck to you.

On the corner in the place I inhabit

When you’re growing up in a small town
You say no one famous ever came from here
—small town, Songs for Drella, Lou Reed & John Cale

Today’s WordPress daily prompt is the word inhabit and this week’s photo challenge is an essay on the corner. I wanted to say something on my blog before too much time had passed so I looked to see what the daily prompt was saying today and I went out and took a couple of photos to participate in the weekly photography challenge again. I am beginning to understand that for my blog to have the faintest chance of being readable I have to dispense with the grade school rules of writing and begin to think more about how a blogger need think and how a blogger need write, and I’ve been on WordPress five years now and I know it doesn’t really amount to much.

Corner theme
Friday, August 25

It doesn’t mean I’m frustrated or full of self-doubt or anything like that. I’ve become convinced that there are new rules for writing on the Internet, and what need be done in the fashion of blogging, you can see plain as day from the words in front of you how a style of blogging best resemble. Similar to how it is now.

angles and intersections
Friday, August 25

What should be said? Perhaps as little as possible. Perhaps a little more, though, because why shouldn’t your life include a blog?

It’s near-essential. I don’t like much about the place I inhabit, I admit, but I grew up in this and I remain, despite the diminishing odds for success and the relative poverty and narrowness of opportunity I shoulder. I have family here and other supports and resources and it is a comfortable life, just not a daring one (you can find the website for our family-operated not-for-profit here).

Does it depress you thinking of something like what it is to be from somewhere that is mostly unknown? Don’t let it. For every withered self-help tome that exhorts the benefits of change and proffers a philosophy of optimism, don’t overlook the relative advantages of leading a comfortable life.

You should work hard and you should be kind, but never let the gloom in the streets extinguish the fire of passion you feel or clamp down on your enthusiasm or ruin your day in the least. Everything is as it should be, I whisper.

The times are exciting and even with only relatively scarce resources you can try this, and you can chase your dreams if they’re gathered in your arms or you can at least make out that you are having a good time. Living well is the best revenge, it’s said, and I would encourage you, if I really knew you, to put that into practice and to have a bit of fun what with everything you’re required to do and what you think you can do, to make your life better for yourself, and to experience a comparable level of satisfaction with your living in light of what you profoundly wish and desire.

That being said, I thank you, for reading this and for taking an interest of any kind in WordPress. If you relate to what I’ve said here, feel free to “like,” comment, and/or follow if it suits you. Good luck!

Jenna Marbles for President

Shield Your Eyes and Dissolve the Most Troubling Condition that Plagues You

I was very humbled last night by a comment on the post I wrote and published yesterday, found at pity-for-loss-and-unfulfilled-expectations/

You see, I was speculating that were I to choose a favorite poet of the past, I would choose Percy Bysshe Shelley for his brilliant repute. It was kindly explained to me many things about the death of the renowned poet with which I was barely acquainted. It is possible I should be apologetic for saying so much about the lettered man of two hundred years ago. You can find a recent post by William Pierce who provided assistance to me at https://walkwithgod.blog/2017/07/23/pray-to-be-one/ William blogs regularly, publishing passages of text from The Bible along with his devotional poems and with prayer. I am grateful for this emotional support of my efforts and am considering repenting more often such that the work I do is not in vain.
Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word Trance. As you must know, the Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017, which is I understand is visible across North America, must be treated as the dangerous phenomenon it is but also recognized as an important occasion that will mark the days for a long time to come. I think of trance as something in Black Magic that brings the dead back from the grave or as a hypnotic state induced in order to remember the distant past or to cope with a problem that troubles one’s self-conscious. For the most part, though, the thing that occurs to me the most is the underground trance music of clubbers that I think was characteristic of dance music in the 1990s. I don’t mean the radio-friendly pop music, I mean the beats and the electronica, like Orb or other people doing music like that. I probably know as much about it as I do about Shelley, but those ideas are what the word suggests to me. Naturally enough, I am sure there will be many entering a trance state at some point today and tomorrow, as the solar eclipse is widely held to be an important twenty-first-century event. However the state of mind that is trance is accessed, if you see this it may be of benefit to you to reflect on events which happened on and about the time of the 2017 Solar Eclipse.  Planets Mercury Mars Venus and Earth blank

It is a difficult decision whether to blog, but I am in favor of it as I feel it is a regular part life and has been years now, and I am going with this blog post, as it doesn’t have a very large readership and it is unlikely to be scrutinized too closely. I do recognize, especially with the help of William Pierce, who has been gracious enough to respond to several of my blog posts in the past, and who seems positively in favor of gentle guidance onto the path of The Lord. It may ultimately be the path I tread, as I feel there is much comfort to be had in the arms of Jesus Christ, and with all of the rewards that accompany a life in Christ.files

If you are okay with this post, click like, follow, and/or subscribe. I’ll see you soon. Good luck to you, and don’t forget too soon what has come August 21, 2017. It’s the Dark Side of the Moon. I believe you are owed the freedom that accompanies the decision to recognize 2017’s Solar Eclipse. Change can happen and is real.

Pity for Loss and Unfulfilled Expectations

The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word Recite and it is a daunting cue, but not impossible. The prompt invites bloggers to reason and interpret the idea of the word, “recite.”

Each WordPress Prompt is a word planned to help bloggers to think of something to write for his or her blog. This is naturally risky in that the blogger can seem foolish, but the appearance of stupidity must be risked if you want an audience. I just want to run over for you that it would be common to recite a poem, of course, and if I had to mention a poet, I would consider Shelley.

How is it that pleasure in sorrow can be sweet? How can sorrow provide any pleasure, if it is a condition of suffering? I think of these two questions when I contemplate what Shelley said.

Sorrow occurs when there is an overwhelming loss in the life of an individual.

This can devastate you. It can unravel you from within, as though you were a wool effigy mounted on the hearth or in the vestibule. It is not a state of pleasure, almost definitely not, and yet Shelley possibly felt that it was, or it could be, and I take it the poet experienced that kind of pleasure as being of the highest order.

How is it that we can be anything else than embittered by the peril of sorrow and suffering? How is it possible that we can encounter the pleasure of all things during the turmoil of the condition of sorrow?

What is there to be had from entering into a state of sorrow with the expectation that the desired outcome should be a pleasure? Why did a search for Shelley return that quote?

The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

The search says Shelley was an Englishman who died in 1822. Don’t tell me what I’ll find if there are depths of sorrow ahead. It’s a depressing thought, and I don’t blame you if you aren’t ready to “like” this.

You’re free to, however, to “like” this post if you see fit, and to comment and/or to “follow.” I hope you’re all right, and I know that unhappiness is challenging if you are feeling low. Unexpected avenues of pleasure become evident sometimes, and while I urge you to steer clear of sorrow, you are welcome to every drop of pleasure you can extract.

Good luck.

Unofficial Church Army

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is, oddly enough, about your personal moments of distraction when you are about practicing your self-discipline (i.e., when you are working). I help a little with operations at a small cemetery in Ontario, in the city where I live.  We care for the grounds, etc. (you can find us on the Internet here).

However, to be totally honest, but it could be therapeutic, I am completely distractible by my own thoughts, which typically drift to my activities on the Internet, not so much Internet dating or the like, but being active on the Internet, and, more often, accessing music on the Internet.

It distracts me to no end and I begin to wish for it.

It is a terrible practice when I am expected to be solemn.  I regret this and try to conceal it.

However, for example… there is a church in front of the cemetery which disbanded in 2006 (you can find Louth United on Facebook here). One of the things that preoccupy is music by a band that was classic in the 1980s, The Church (see the similarity?  There’s a church. I think about the song Under the Milky Way).

Even my mother has encouraged me to stop that.  However, I feel I am nearly part of the Church Army.

In fact, the other day I saw the band’s tweet announcing their North America tour of 2017.  Even though there is only one stop in Canada, and it is far west, in Vancouver, I thought I would put this in place because if you are in the United States, in a major center, here is when The Church is back in your town.

Church2017
2017 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

I’ve thought about the possibility that I am doing a disservice to the religious, by speaking of The Church, which clearly utilizes ideas about space and time in its music, which is somewhat heretical in the sense that ideas of that kind typically preclude a normal interest in God. It really isn’t like that. Steve Kilbey, who sings Under the Milky Way, knows quite a bit about Christian history, as I’ve observed in his blogging on The Time Being.

Other than that, he’s a major recording artist who has a classic song from the 1980s and he’s thoroughly cool. I have that interest in him that I can’t shake, and it’s been years (feels like my whole life) that I’ve been feeling happy when I remember to play songs by his band The Church.  I realize that this is a far cry from what’s hip in my stretch of the sea, but I am consistently wowed by all the intellect, talent, and creativity that goes into Kilbey’s music, with and without The Church.

For example, Starfish from 1988, which includes Under the Milky Way, is full of great music that betrays that it’s a staple of the 1980s, but also a little more removed from stylistic touches that dominate most music of its day.  There was tons of tacky music in the 1980s.

Look at the tour poster for The Church in 2017 in North America. You can find The Church on Twitter here. If you are interested in any of this, feel free to ‘like,” “follow,” and/or “comment.”

Thank you for visiting and good luck this autumn.

Focus
Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Like Sunshine the Future is Welcome

WordPress provides a series of supportive prompts, including Daily Prompts which these days are typically one word, designed to get participating bloggers writing about similar themes at the same time (often unbeknownst to one another).  I check the Daily Prompt when I think of writing a blog post, and today’s prompt is the word, “glaring,” which interests me because I immediately think of what is glaring that is obvious.  I relate the word glaring to the phrase glaringly obvious.  The prompt is here:  glaring

 

I think some about video, which is an extraordinary innovation in 2017, and which is provided for consumers at many levels, both amateur and professional (and in between).  The word video, as I understand it, typically refers to video content, which is videos that are assembled in relative entirety, or in sequential formats, possibly to inform, and often to entertain.  For example, the king of social media, Facebook, is debuting today original video inside the “Watch” tab on your Facebook account.  I presume this debut is coming across the U.S., but I think I have to wait to teach myself the “Watch” tab rather than seek out too much additional instruction (and thus feel the element of surprise), as I am at home in Canada.  You can learn a little more about the “Watch” tab on Facebook in the U.S. here:  https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/09/facebook-watch/

 

00001. While the news doesn’t make the same waves in Canada, it is just one more aspect of video in 2017 that indicates that if you are marketing content for business purposes, you need to be afield in video content.  Personally, I help operate a not-for-profit with a small following on Facebook, and while we’re short of the mark where the potential to show video content exists, at least we are somewhat informed as to what is happening with small business and the Internet and we are persisting with some hopes for video in the future.  Visit us here:  

https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

A summer funeral
Peter checks that the cemetery plot is complete the day of the funeral.

You are welcome to network with us by clicking what WordPress, like Facebook, calls, “like,” if you have an interest in what I am posting.  You can also click, “follow,” on my blog, if you want more content along the lines what I am writing, and you can also leave a comment.

Brief tips for keeping up

Church at cemetery

I am updating this a year later–this is the early morning of August 12, 2018, and I published this post after curating it from something I did October 20, 2014.  I am the SMM and junior operations director for a small not-for-profit cemetery.  I have my hand in as a blogger to complement my research and social media skills.

We’re on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

How is your content doing?  Are you keeping records?

There’s nothing intuitive about being outfitted for killer content.  It’s Internet 101.  There’s engagement and then there’s conversion.

  • Be relevant in a sprawling web environment

You won’t be able to see the horizon on the world wide web.  It goes on and on, and your time can disappear into it the way tree leaves lose their pigment and then fall.

I hope that you have a plan because goals are incredibly important.  You have an uphill battle to face already, and without clear goals for you to pursue, you are spinning your wheels and going nowhere.  I definitely wish I’d tackled it more systematically years ago.

Try challenging yourself by investigating new techniques for setting goals, and see what you can put into effect.  I realize this is advice for a beginner, but if you are new and you read this, please understand that I am doing my best to run over some basic tips that you can put into practice for yourself.

You can prioritize what you want to achieve if you put some planning into what you are about. If you have the spontaneity and creative mindset to be headstrong, I’m sure that’s ok. If you are overwhelmed, and you could be, you need to throw down some controls on what you are doing.

Church at cemetery
Louth United Church

  • Read success stories and compare them to yourself

The world wide web is cool, so don’t fret.  You do need a plan of attack.

Organize your efforts so that they resemble the kind of list in which you might write what groceries you want to buy.  It’s a start!  

Don’t dismiss the inspiration you find by learning about what people who are achievers did to get where they are today.  Above all else, there are plenty of people with good intentions to who you can reach out on your journey across the Internet.

  • Find release in a second hobby

The world wide web has a lot to offer, but you probably need a second hobby if you’re feeling troubled.  Something that you can do in the outdoors might be good, to keep your mind active on more than one front (on more than just your life computing).

Maybe you should be writing offline, to keep your engine fresh.  Reading real-world books is a good idea, especially if you can learn something from them.  That’s a concrete example of how and when doors will open for you.

Speaking of the real world, interaction outside the digital corridors of the Internet has its place for you, distinctly.  Don’t go too far afield by forgetting what’s out there physically.

Dimensions: 1920 x 1440
Photographer: Burak Kebapci

Are you struggling with your brand identity?  Leave a comment for me if you think of something I strongly need to see.  I’m curating this based on a blog post I did the twentieth of October, 2014, which rather needed an update.

I wouldn’t mind hearing of others’ efforts as you keep on descending into the backwaters of the Internet.  I know readers may be reluctant to comment, but you’re very welcome to note here where your online journey has taken you.  And if you do relate, and in fact have found help.

You can “like” and/or “follow” as well.  Thanks!

A Partnership in Operations, in the Real World and also on WordPress

My father Peter and I look after operations at Maple Lawn Cemetery, a little graveyard where families continue to lay their loved ones to rest.  I’m not entirely sure between the two of us who thought we should involve our efforts with social media, with https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited … but we do, and I know from the Internet that blogging is an important component of branding businesses of all sizes.  I had the idea to tailor a blog to activities both inside and outside of the cemetery, and I am only these days beginning to narrow its focus so that it is both a heart on the sleeve and also offering some acumen of what we get up to as a two-partner not-for-profit http://maplelawncemetery.org/

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Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word partner… https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/partner/ …and my dad and I have been restructuring the work we do lately in order to accommodate changing experiences we’re encountering as we continue to maintain the cemetery (we began in 2013).  Dad worked for the municipality for many years and much of that time was spent in the office of the municipal cemetery where he played the role of a boss.  Similarly, at Maple Lawn, Peter functions in the role of a boss as we both look after operations which from my point of view chiefly include summertime caretaking and some duties in the disbanded church, Louth United, which is on the street running in front of the cemetery we look after.  What we’re really doing at the present is weighing how effectively we are carrying out duties caretaking the cemetery, and we do that without the benefit of the guidance of a Board of Directors or anyone else evaluating what we’re about, but not without the input of my mother and Peter’s wife Linda, who listens a little to what we have to say about what we’re getting done at the graveyard.

 DSCF8386

For about the last three years, I’ve been blogging with relative frequency, and although the theme of the blog probably seems a little unclear, it is like that primarily because I don’t have much partnership to draw upon when I am thinking about what to say for the blog.  I found myself settling upon drawing on the WordPress Daily Prompts and Weekly Photo Challenges for ideas what to say because that other bloggers use the WordPress prompts will be similarly finding themselves challenged to write posts with the spark of inspiration engendered by those prompts.  Ultimately I have found myself beginning to face the need to rewrite earlier posts I have put together so that they remain relevant and with the most direct aspects of the prompts written out as the specific prompts in question have fallen by the wayside.  I think what I have is a blog that resembles an eBook written at random and gradually entering the phase of its life in a state of the “second draft,” which is what I am doing now.

 

If you can relate to what I have on the go here, feel free to “like,” “comment,” and/or “follow.”  I am open to the possibility of looking on at your own blog, and if you do respond I can look at an example of one of your blog posts so I can relate to you.  Above all else, my blogging efforts are fun and are really only useful from the point of view of experimenting with a blog while keeping it grounded in my real world activities of working and learning.  Thank you for reading, and all the best to you.