Wednesday 31 December 2014

M&M: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Dear Reader,

my mother didn't like the actor Jim Carrey much. He was grimassing too much for her liking. But one day our half american friends once borrowed us their only english dvd of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. Jim Carrey is hidden behind a hairy green mask in that one. My mother understood english well, but it wasn't quite good enough for the details of the film. She borrowed the german dvd from the library a couple of days later. The story was compelling enough for her and Jim Carrey hidden enough, that she found it well worth watching a second time.

But what's the story about anyway? The film from the year 2000 tells the christmassy story, based on a story by Dr. Seuss. In english speaking areas Dr. Seuss is well known for writing stories for children in rhymes. As already in Nightmare Before Christmas, this story too is about an unhappy outsider. Though with the Grinch we've got someone who hates christmas as much as one can hate a celebration. He lives up north from Whoville, a small town, in which all inhabitants just love christmas like no other celebration. Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsn) is the young daughter of the post officer Lou Lou Who (Bill Irwin). She is a bright, curious girl and when she finds out that the Grinch never sends, nor gets post, she goes to find out why. It's because of her insistence, too, that during the party before christmas, the Grinch should be the cheermeister of the party. Because the book says, “The cheermeister is the one who deserves a back slap or a toast. And it goes to the soul at Christmas who needs it most.” Not that the Grinch would agree, that he needed christmas the most... But Cindy Lou goes to him up on the mountain and invites him. The Grinch thinks hard back and forth and eventually goes. Gritting his teeth, he makes it through all the festivities.


And then... then comes the night. The Grinch is up on his mountain and sees how Santa Claus with his sleigh and reindeers is bringing the presents to everyone. So he sets out and makes himself a christmas costume and his loyal dog Max is converted to a reindeer for the sleigh. Then the Grinch sneaks down to the town and steals all the presents to destroy them in the dump. When he gets to Cindy Lou's house, she's just awake, too. He hides behind the christmas tree, which he was just about to steal. When she asks him what christmas is really about, he simply tells her, “Vengeance!” only to correct himself quickly with, “I mean... presents... I suppose.”


In the early hours the first couple of people realise that the presents are gone. But the inhabitants of Whoville are flexible and find that christmas isn't really about presents anyway, but being with your beloved family. So they sing and are happy after all. The Grinch hears that and realises for the first time, that he, too, can change. What that change looks like and what the Grinch does with that, you'll have to find out for yourself. I also won't tell you, why the Grinch is living so alone on the mountain in the first place. That's a story you'll have to find out together with Cindy Lou.

By the way Jim Carrey's mask was really good According to a trivia entry on imdb.com to that movie, the latex skin was so confining and uncomfortable for him, that he needed counselling from Navy SEAL who taught him torture-resistance techniques.

It's interesting how in certain kind of movies, the bad guys come across as very sympathetic somehow. The Grinch is one of those. With his deep seated hate, he is certainly entertaining and is different from the often only cheesy christmas stories.

Until next blog,
sarah

Tuesday 30 December 2014

Drug of choice

Dear reader,

a treat for you for new year's eve, although most of you probably won't read it in time and/or won't have time to prepare yourself accordingly before the party. Anyway... 

Drug of choice is something Richard Bandler came up with. The idea is that our body remembers sensations and reactions. Mind you, it's not the drugs that cause you to feel a certain way and experience the world in a certain way. It's your body's response to the drugs that does that. So for example it's not the LSD that makes you feel the way you feel, it's your body's response to the LSD.

Of course with the technique's name "drug of choice" we tend to think of drugs: LSD, or alcohol most commonly, I guess. But it can also be used to help you sleep without your sleeping pills. According to Richard Bandler, you have to take this pill or whatever once and remember it and if you do the remembering well enough, taking the thing once is enough and you can recreate the sensations again as much and as often as you like and need to. I remember Bandler talking about having several teeth removed and he needed to take some kind of meds. He supposedly took them only once and did it with "drug of choice" the next times. The good thing about "drug of choice" is that with alcohol for example, you don't get the negative side- or after-effects like hangover, headache and such. Essentially "drug of choice" means: free drugs as much as you want!

So how do you do this? Let's say you want to get drunk. You remember a past time when you were drunk or drinking anyway. Where's the first location you felt it in your body? I assume it was your mouth. What kind of feeling was it? Maybe a cooling sensation in your mouth. Where did you feel something next? And what kind of sensation? Just as suggestions: your throat? Stomach? What about your hands? Your legs? How about your head? Just go through your body, remember all the parts of your body in the order you feel the effects when you are drinking alcohol. Got them all? Go through them again. As always, do it in the order they happen for you. Do this a couple of times and you'd most likely be drunk quite soon. You may want to make sure you're sitting down somewhere the first time or times you do this. And watch out when you stand up again!

You could also create an anchor for being drunk. That way you may get there faster the next time and you don't always have to sit down going through all the parts of your body time and again.

There's a nice video of the magician Derren Brown doing this with a guy:


Derren is quite sneaky with his anchor on the poor chap sending him a short message at an unexpected time. Watch out for the guy with the turban, who's sitting in front of the guy. That's Derren. He's in his costume/disguise from another trick he did prior to this in that show. So it's not like Derren just sends him messages and leaves him alone drunk. Very responsible man, he is.

And also another video working with anchors to enhance the intensity here:


The basic idea of this is that you had the sensations before and remember them in a certain order. But others suggested that you don't need to have been drunk in order to make yourself drunk that way. We all have seen drunk people either in real life or on movies. So we have a reference, if not our own. Some say that this is enough already. I haven't tested that yet.

You may also want to take it further than just getting rid of your sleeping pills. They only gave me one once or twice on a night before surgery. But I don't usually take them and wouldn't do it again ever given my experiences and knowledge about hypnosis now. Certainly they gave me some stuff to calm me down before surgeries. You may want to recreate those sensations, too, if you aren't used to sleeping pills. I'm sure you'll go to sleep very soon that way. Even if you don't take sleeping pills. I know I could drift off quite easily that way if I wanted to. However for sleeping problems I usually do something less "dramatic", but equally effective, as I wrote in other posts before.

You could substitute sleeping pills, if you take them on a regular basis and don't want that anymore. Ideally you shouldn't need sleeping pills on a regular basis anyway. Certainly you can get hypnotically drunk with this method, too. How about replacing pills that help you with sexual dysfunctions of some kind with this method? How about if you have a weight problem and make up your own drug with “drug of choice” to help you with that? Or a confidence booster for shy people? Or... post your ideas to use this method in the comments. (Also see my Long live placebo post for that, if you haven't already read it.)

You could also combine effects or effects of different substances and make your own new free drug! It's  free, no negative side-effects, no after-effects. And you can have it as often and as long as you want. I have this naïve idea that people teach this method to addicts and the drug-related crimes and deaths go down and drug taking goes down. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. I haven't worked with addicts, I don't really know about addictions. Would be cool if it worked though.

Please be careful, if you want to use this method to replace actual medication you really need. Like a diabetic who needs regular insulin shots for example. At least consult your doctor about this before. There are some pharmaceuticals you should actually take and not replace them like that. Not without consulting a doctor first anyway.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 25 December 2014

Heavenly music

Dear reader,

I rarely hear "pure" classical music. I do listen to a lot of soundtracks. Soundtracks speak to more, because good soundtracks tell a story of their own even without the pictures.

Year ago, I became again interested in magic and found Derren Brown. In his stage show "Something Wicked This Way Comes", the second act starts with him getting a woman from the audience on stage, sitting her across from him at a table, signing a brick of wood for her and then hammering a nail in his nose, well the nose hole. To finish, he hammers the nail in the brick (perfectly timed with the playing music) and hands the brick to her as a present. All of that is with almost no words, he only whispers when she should hold the nail and when he asks for her name to sign the brick for her. This is accompanied by Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, in english areas also known as "The Emperor". It is a strange thing to see someone hammering a nail in the nose, although I'm well aware that this act is not a trick, but really possible. Those of you, who can't see that sort of thing, should just click on the video to start it and look away or close your eyes. Everyone else can, of course, also close your eyes and just enjoy the music. The piece itself is the second of three and about 9 minutes long. Those of you who want to listen to the whole piano concerto and haven't yet, be warned: the transition from the second to the third part is very instant and very loud.

The second part is, not least because of Derren Brown, my favourite part. Although it doesn't hurt trained people to hammer a nail in the nose, it still has become the essence of relaxation and especially analgesia for me.

You have been warned, Derren Brown hammers a nail in his nose in this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNbnuZR2wd4

I heard the second, in my opinion divine, piece, in the movie "Master & Commander". A crew is sailing around on a ship. The captain enjoys playing the violin and the doctor plays the cello. Preferably, and much to the dislike of the rest of the crew, they play classical pieces. This is why there are at least some excerpts f those classical pieces on the CD of the soundtrack, too. An ingenious movie with the combination classical pieces with the captain and the doctor, by the way. Normally the two of them play always together. So all pieces are for violin and cello. The only exception is when they stop at the galapagos islands, to treat the injured doctor and give him a rest. On the island, on land and among many interesting new animals, he is in his element. That's the only moment, when you can hear a piece for solo cello, namely Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007.

My favourite piece however can be heard when they sadly have to abandon a sailor, a cut version (of about 16 minutes cut down to about 5 minutes) of "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughun Williams. It's a bit complicated, I know. Thomas Tallis lived about 1500 until 1580-ish and has composed a hymn. Vaughun Williams was born about 1890-ish and died in 1960-ish. He was very interested in english folk songs and was inspired by Tallis' hymn. Vaughun Williams composed his wonderful piece in 1910, in which it was also performed for the first time in the Gloucester Cathedral. The special thing about it is, that the musicians are not all sitting together. some of them are sitting in a smaller ensemble somewhat apart. Vaughun Williams did that for the sound effect. In the link, which I'll give you in a bit, which by the way is also Gloucester Cathedral, the group is sitting, like they were in the premiere, so the spacial arrangement can be seen. I find it unbelievably exciting to hear the high strings at the beginning playing their melody and the low strings replying with the strings being plucked. The strings need quite some time, until they find to each other and really play together.

I'm not a music theorist. Others could tell much more about that piece. If you're interested, you'll certainly read up about it. I was lucky and found a very insightful audio sort of documentarydiscussion on the internet. It is about 45 minutes long. Let me know, if you want to listen to it. This should be it with explanations today.

Here it is now, the heavenly "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughun Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihx5LCF1yJY

With this I wish you all a heavenly christmas!

If you like, you can post your own favourite classical music in the comments,

Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 13 December 2014

Finding interactive: your turn

Dear reader,

I already wrote about what I did once to find my glasses.

After the 11th Doctor had to say good-bye to Amy and Rory and seeing and losing Clara twice, he's sitting depressed on a swing when a little girl comes to sit next to him. Of course she notices that he's sad. She tells him what she's doing when she lost something:

"When I lost something I go to a quiet place and I close my eyes and then I can remember where I put it."

The Doctor agrees that this is a good plan.

A girl cannot seriously help a Time Lord to find something he lost, you might think. But this girl is qualified all right, because "I am always losing things. I lost my best pencil, my school bag, my gran and my mojo."

Here's the whole clip, about 2 1/2 minutes with the Doctor on the swing, english subtitles available, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRsCh4dYURA

And you? What do you do when you lost something (or someone?)?

Until next blog,
sarah

Sunday 30 November 2014

M&M: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Dear reader,

I hesitated for a long time, to watch this movie. When I finally did it a couple of days ago, I knew by the end of it, which would be my next M&M movie: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” from 1920. This film is a silent film and for the colour and spoken words spoiled viewers, this is certainly not a film for everyone to enjoy. With a running time of just a bit over an hour though, it's not taking up too much time and certainly shouldn't stop you from watching it! Also it's a german film, though english subtitles for the text cards do exist. So English-speaking readers of my blog can relax and go watch it, too, if you're interested!

Francis (Friedrich Feher) tells a friend of the very strange and scary experiences, he and his friend Jane (Lil Dagover) went through at the holstenwall fair. It was there when Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) exhibited the somnambulist Cesare (very brilliantly played by Conrad Veidt). Somnambulist is the more technical term for sleep walking, to sleep very deep and yet move around and do things as if in a waking state. Dr. Caligari says that Cesare is 23 years old and has been asleep for 23 years! Cesare isn't a wonder for just sleeping for 23 years though. He can also see into the future. When Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) asks him, for how long he, Alan, would live, Cesare tells him “Until dawn.” In fact Alan is dead the next morning. Francis suspects Cesare to be the murderer right away and starts spying after him. The next victim should be Jane. But when Cesare sees how beautiful she is, he can't stab her, but kidnaps her instead. Jane's father wakes up from the noise so that Cesare eventually puts Jane carefully on the ground, before he can flee. Dr. Caligari is able to run away from an inspection of his caravan. He finds refuge in a madhouse. Is that the right place for Francis, to find the truth behind Dr. Caligari's secrets? See for yourself!

The style of the film is much like that of a Tim Burton film. Many angles are just odd, also for example shapes doors. The character of Cesare bares close resemblance to Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands. Certainly Tim Burton found inspiration in this film for Edward. The film is quite similar to a theatre play in terms of the set design and, among other things, the fact that it is separated into 6 acts. A theatre stage, especially with odd angles, can create feelings of claustrophobia and restriction. In that respect this horror film is created in a very interesting way, especially since it was made when the history of film was still rather young. If you like Tim Burton movies and enjoy a bit of a fright, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” might be one for you. Don't be afraid of silent movies, be brave. I didn't regret it! If you should be afraid of Dr. Caligari is another question...

Thanks to Mark Gatiss (yes, “him” again...), who with his three part series "A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss" brought my attention to this movie.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 27 November 2014

Holey logic

Dear reader,

I'm living in the ruhr area, which means it's an area shaped by mining. What wasn't much thought of at the time of coal mining back then, is the fact that by drilling shafts underground, the ground level will be changed and moving, too. There is especially a danger of old shafts collapsing and leaving deep holes in the ground. You can see that in my parents' home, when you look around for example in the living-room. There and in the other rooms, you'll see smaller or longer cracks in the walls. You shouldn't think about it too much. Otherwise your mind might create images of suddenly tumbling walls or the ground would open up and swallow it up! There's also an interesting crack in the parquet floor between the living-room and dining-room. Now in winter the crack is almost invisible and closed. In the summer it's clearly visible and has the thickness of a finger. Once I heard my mother say that we'll have to leave the house in any case in about 10 years or so, when the house will be collapsing or breaking apart from the mining. A scary though, that the house will suddenly just collapse or break apart like that and be impossible to live in.

As a fan of Mark Gatiss, I know he was born in county durham. So when in the end of august this year, one of my mails from the guardian had the article headline of “30 metre wide sinkhole appears in Durham”, I was all ears, of course. Sam Hillyard had been for a walk with her dog when she noticed the hole, which has even grown wider now. The bottom can't be seen. It's assumed that if someone falls in there, it would be impossible to get the person out again. Which is why there are warnings now to keep your distance. It's assumed that it comes from mining in that area.


I was practically speechless when I read the following article headline though: “Kiruna: the town being moved 3km east so it doesn't fall into a mine”. The swedish town lives from iron-ore mining. Now the mining resulted in so much damage in the city, that the citizens have to move. Typical for the civilised people to often start thinking about their actions and results of that, when their own life is at risk because of it. Maybe futuristic films like Twelve Monkeys aren't that unrealistic after all and the surface of the earth is contaminated with something or otherwise condemned as uninhabitable. Or everything is sunken in from the many drillings and mining of things inside the earth, that there simply isn't a surface anymore as we know it now.

Until next blog,
sarah

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Pain be gone!

Dear reader,

a couple of years ago I had a contact on the internet. One evening he wrote to me that he has had a headache. I wrote him that I know something with pain that might quite likely help him. He didn't have any pain anymore, but wanted to know anyway what I would have written to him to help. So I told him that I give pain a shape, something spiky and edgy and then turn it into something round and smooth, as I already explained in more detail in my Pain control post. He was very interested and fascinated by that. Then I didn't see him for a longer time. When he was online again after several weeks, he told me that he has had a skin rash. His hands had been red and must have hurt a lot. But he remembered what I have told him before and because of that his hands barely hurt him at all. He was absolutely delighted.


Sidney Rosen has a in his collection of Dr. Milton Erickson stories “My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Ericksona story called “Calluses”, in which Erickson helped a construction worker, who was in much pain and paralysed except for using his arms and in after a heavy accident. Erickson suggested to him to tell his family and friends to bring him comic books and to tell the nurse to get him paste and scissors. He was to create scrapbooks from the comics. And every time a fellow workman would land in hospital, he should send one of those book to him.


When I was little, I knew my aunt on my father's side always with a dog. These days she doesn't have a dog anymore. After the last one died, she decided against a new one, so she could travel a bit more freely. She does takes care of the dogs of neighbours regularly. In the newspaper my parents get there's always a Peanuts comic. I collected the ones with Snoopy and put them together to a thin scrapbook for my aunt for her birthday. An old lady doesn't necessarily read comic. But, as I wrote in a card I included, this wasn't a usual comic book. She called me then to tell me she reads a page or two every day and was very happy about it.


I can only recommend to everyone who wants to make a book like that too, to start collecting very early on. If that book should be finished at a certain date, like for a birthday or christmas. It takes time to have all the “right” comics together, possibly longer than you expect it to take. Even with thin books like I used them. Below you can see a really tiny book I was lucky enough to just have, which I filled with quotes for a friend of mine, also cut from the newspaper. Two pages inside as an example for you and the cover.

Until next blog,
sarah



Thursday 30 October 2014

M&M: Agatha Christie's Poirot: Hallowe'en Party

Dear reader,

at first I thought for a long time whether to write about “The Exorcist” today or the episode “Hallowe'en Party” (season 12, episode 3) of “Agatha Christie's Poirot”. “The Exorcist is a classic horror film. So it would certainly fit and I will definitely write about it some time. Today I feel more like going for that episode however, because Hercule Poirot says something in it, which may change the reader's mind a bit about Halloween, too. He doesn't like Halloween much and especially not the tradition of horror and horror stories. He turns off a horror story on the radio, because he can't stand listening to it anymore. He investigated too many real murders to be “entertained” with a fictional one today.

Hercule Poirot is a belgian private detective, who is always willing to help out friends. So it's no question for him to go right away to help his friend Ariadne Oliver, when she calls him. During a children's party at Halloween, the girl Joyce tells everyone present, that she saw a murder. Although she only understands now what she saw and that it had been a murder. One of the children's games was apple bobbing, in which apples are put in a bucket full of water and they're supposed to eat them without using their hands. Joyce is found drowned in that bucket with the last apple in it.

Nobody but Hercule Poirot believe what Joyce said. She's just a kid after all. Also she was known to exaggerate and story telling a lot. What kind of a murder was she supposed to have witnessed? But Poirot finds out that over the past years, there had been three deaths and Joyce might have told the truth about one of them after all.

I haven't read the novel by the same title (yet), on which this movie is based. So I can't tell how “well” the movie is done in comparison. I do however like the episode. A murder on a child and Halloween are two scary themes in one movie. Certainly exactly what attracted the writer of the episode, Mark Gatiss, most about it, too. I know how much he likes Agatha Christie or a good detective story and horror and all things scary. Like I wrote before, I'm one of those “later fans” of Mark Gatiss. So it's no surprise that I like this episode written by him.

Hadley Freeman from the Guardian seems to have similar dislikes for certain behaviour of people on Halloween like Hercule Poirot. Although in her article Why are Halloween costumes so ‘slutty’?, her focus is more on why so many women costumes are so unbelievably short and show much skin. In october! Rightly so, she suggests to get the women in those costumes a good pullover so they don't freeze that much. The other day I stumbled upon a website with Halloween costumes. I couldn't forbear and check the women costumes. Indeed all the costumes I saw, where short and designed to show much skin. I wouldn't actually walk the streets and collect suits. But even just to go see some friends for an evening together, I wouldn't put on one of those short things. Way too cold!!! I prefer going with Mark Gatiss' edible(!) or rather drinkable authentic fake horror movie blood. But I'm getting off-topic here... I want to close this post with Hercule Poirot's final words of the movie, which are:

“Halloween is not a time for the telling of the stories macabre, but to light the candles for the dead. Come, mes amis, let us do so.“

Until next blog,
sarah

Monday 27 October 2014

The truth about too positive thinking: the bitter pill

Dear reader,

for the first time I prefer the german idiom (literally “the sour apple” or “biting the sour apple” actually) to the english “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the bitter pill”. Often I like the english idioms more. In this case though, fruit-wise, the german one fits better after my The lemon post than “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the (bitter) pill”. That's not the truth about too positive thinking. That's just something I noticed for myself and it doesn't even have to be the truth at all.


Gabriele Oettingen from the university of New York is researching self-regulation of goal setting and goal disengagement. In 2011 Oettingen and her colleague Heather Kappes did an interesting experiment. They deprived participants of the experiment of water. But they let them experience a guided visualisation exercise in which they pictured a glass of cold water. After that they measured the blood pressure and found that the exercise drained their energy and made them relaxed. They felt less compelled to actually get the real glass of water to satisfy their very real thirst.


Oliver Burkeman from the Guardian writes in his article How to be fitter, happier and more successful: stop dreaming and start getting real, that these findings are actually the reverse of what's very commonly known and assumed. Thoughts of the quite popular and well known The Secret come to my mind, which is full of examples of people more or less wishing for a positive future and then getting it.Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues show that this intensive imagining is just one way to failure. A positive, new future doesn't come from “thinking up” a perfect world, but actually taking actions and that's other and new actions from what has been done before and brought unsatisfying results. Remember Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Therefore my idea of “thinking yourself thinner” as described in my Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see, was meaningless in the end. At least it's not the only way, if you want to be thinner. Especially girls or women can be seen again and again wearing tight cloths. At least that's not the only way to go, if someone wants to be thinner. In any case, there isn't just this one thing someone has to change or do to be thinner anyway. Tighter cloths can help in some ways. But what some, especially girls and women do, is not helping the “thinking yourself thinner”, but looking like a stuffed sausage and making it visible for everyone else just how not fitting those close are for them, which is certainly not at all the way to do it. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, Oettingen describes the WOOP method. WOOP stands for “wish, outcome, obstacle, plan”. On the WOOP homepage you can not only find more information like WOOP in 24 hrs to listen to and other downloads and help for interested people. WOOP is the idea that not everything is beautiful and perfect with thinking of it that way. The outcome, more specifically one specific outcome you imagine from that changed future helps. The very popular ignoring or “fighting your way” through obstacles may work sometimes. The second “o” (obstacle) in WOOOP and the “p” (plan) help making plans for what to do when ignoring isn't helping the reality and your original goal seems to fade away. That's how so many good ideas fall through after all: a missing plan for what to do when obstacles are there.


Until next blog,
sarah

Wednesday 22 October 2014

The lemon

Dear reader,

imagine yourself sitting at a table. In front of you on that table is a lemon. It's fresh, bright yellow. Take the lemon in your hand. Feel its structure. It's pretty smooth, but has those tiny dots on the surface of the skin. Now take a knife and cut the lemon in two halves. You can smell the fragrance and some of the juice gets on your hands. Take one of the halves and cut it again. More of the smell in your nose and more juice on your fingers now. Do you dare taking one piece and licking the juice once or actually biting a bit off the lemon and chewing it?

Well, did you have to swallow when you read the first paragraph? I don't know what happened for you reading the first paragraph. But my mouth was watering as I was thinking about that lemon and writing that paragraph.

The effect comes, because our mind isn't very good distinguishing between thoughts and reality. When the thought is detailed enough, our (bodily) reactions to it, are as real as they would be with the real thing.

Picture your own future positive and in details and your half way there. In my entry Darn mirror neurons! I told you about a similar phenomenon, that the same parts of our brains are active when we watch people do something and don't participate, as if we were joining in.

I don't remember where I read it or heard it. I will add it, if I find it. In any case there was this experiment, where people had their arm in a cast and couldn't move the arm, of course. The people of one group were told not to move their arm. The participants of the other group where shown certain exercises for the arm for when the cast came off. Although the arm was in the cast and therefore immobile, they should still imagine doing the exercises for real. When the time was up, they found that the decrease of muscle mass of the people's arm of the second group was less than for the first. Interesting how much positive thinking helps, isn't it?

All assumptions are really true. The conclusions we make, which includes scientists and self-help gurus, aren't quite correct though.

However since it's pretty late now and I should go to bed a bit earlier sometimes and I like the fact that people follow my blog and read several posts, I will tell you the negative consequences of too positive thinking in the nest post. Yes, there is such a thing as too positive thinking with consequences, which could sometimes be very negative indeed.

Until next blog,
sarah

Friday 3 October 2014

Only a job part 2

Dear reader,

this goes to show, how little I take notice in some things. Or maybe it shows exactly the selective perception typical for Sherlock Holmes, too. After all, he too wouldn't care about trivialities and gossip. Some people are fans of actors and watch just about everything they could get their hands on with them in it. And some fans, mostly late ones, are especially odd. Mark Gatiss, portraying the older brother, Mycroft Holmes, in the BBC series “Sherlock” is consequently seen as Mycroft and not Mark Gatiss. Before “Sherlock” he was known for being one of the four creative forces of The League of Gentlemen. Noticing Mark Gatiss as Mycroft Holmes though, you'll find comments to The League of Gentlemen clips on Youtube like “Mycroft!!!!” or “So this is what Mycroft is doing in his spare time.” (Never mind my doubts that Mycroft actually takes some time off work...) I can actually sort of understand it somehow. I am, after all, one of those sad fans, who finally noticed him really with “Sherlock”. But for me Mycroft Holmes is Mycroft Holmes and Mark Gatiss is Mark Gatiss. He plays Mycroft Holmes, but nothing more. He also played many other characters, especially in the three seasons of The League of Gentlemen. An extremely creative group they are!

Stephen Fry is another actor, at least equally creative and versatile like Mark Gatiss. He too played Mycroft Holmes, namely in Guy Ritchie's second Sherlock Holmes movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I needed even longer than it took me for the first one, of which I wrote in Price and prejudice, to finally watch it. I like Stephen Fry a lot, but I can't stand Hans Zimmer and as a soundtrack fan, I'm probably more aware of the music than others. Also I thought the story as a whole was somehow confusing this time. I didn't like the movie. Stephen Fry was good and fitting and I did like some scenes. But I'm sorry to say, that's about it.

Maybe I'm just an atypical fan. But I found a picture of Mark Gatiss with Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss' caption "The two Mycrofts! A two pint problem..." (referring to Sherlock Holmes' “three pipe problem”), before my mind actually made that connection. Of course! The two Mycrofts! Others were head exploding and fainting just seeing that picture of the two Mycrofts, as you can read from the comments, when my first reaction was, “Oh, Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss together.” I like the two of them really a lot and I liked to see them together. But obviously my mind just doesn't make certain connections or at least not as fast as would be normal for others. Whatever. It seems that I'm just not ordinary.

Until next blog,
sarah

Tuesday 30 September 2014

M&M: Patch Adams

Dear reader,

August, 11 this year was a strange day for me and certainly also for a friend of mine (you know who you are). On the previous evening we chatted about comedies and actors. We found that we both like Adam Sandler and also Robin Williams. I thought to myself that I wasn't aware of what he had been up to the past couple of years, didn't hear of him for a while. But I was too tired to check just then. I went to bed and the next morning I read in shock and total surprise my daily mails from the Guardian newspaper with latest news. Robin Williams was dead. When I went online with my chat programs, I read that my friend had already read the sad news, too.

So with some delay now, this M&M today in memory of Robin Williams. Philip Seymour Hoffman is an actor, probably unknown or by not too many German speaking people. In “Patch Adams” he's a fellow student and room mate of Patch Adams. Philip Seymour Hoffman died this year (February, 2nd) and I write this entry in his memory, too.

Patch Adams is a movie from the year 1998 and tells the true (as always with feature movies, for dramatic reasons not always the very true) story of Hunter “Patch” Adams. Okay, I know close to nothing about the real Patch Adams and many (online) reviews about this movie are rather negative. Since I know only very little about the “real” Patch Adams and this is a movie review anyway, I'll only stick to what's in the movie.


Hunter Adams is suicidal and admits himself to a hospital for treatment. His room mate is a man, who keeps him awake at night with a squeaking bed, because he needs to go to the toilet, but doesn't dare out of fear for the squirrels he sees. Adams starts a squirrel hunt then and shoots the squirrels (with his hand miming a pistol). After a wild squirrel shooting, the room mate is finally able to go to the toilet. Adams is impressed that he was able to help another person with humour and decides to study medicine to help even more.

During his studies, Adams notices that he doesn't have to learn much. We actually never see him sticking his nose in his books. (I don't know how much this was true. Although there are some lucky ones, who really don't need to do much to learn and remember things.) Adams notices something else, too: the doctors seem often very functional and stern and distant towards patients. Once they talk about a patient in the hospital as she's lying in bed, surrounded by the students and the doctor. They talk about her illness (diabetes with poor circulation and diabetic neuropathy), also treatment (shocked the patient hears the possibility of “amputation”). Then Adams asks, “What's her name?” All just look at him. “I was just wondering the patient's name”, he says. The doctor has to look at the chart. “Marjorie.” “Hi Marjorie”, Adams greets her smiling at her and addressing her personally.

In time he also makes friends with patients and is able to give them some treats and grant them wishes. Some find it “a little disturbing”, that he's sneaking into a room full of kids (the children's ward) and “acting like a clown”. Surely he was eccentric in that scene. Surely I personally couldn't get out of myself like that. Simply because I'm too shy and introverted for something like that. But “disturbing”? Because he's a man among children? He isn't a child molester! He wanted to make the children laugh and they were happy! What's so wrong about that?

Like many Hollywood movies, this one too can't come without a love story. Patch Adams befriends with female student. At first she only wants to study and not make friends, tells him that, too. Some say that Patch Adams is pushy and reckless, forcing his will and happiness on everybody else. I read that just now, as I was reading some comments at the imdb.com Patch Adams forum. All I can say is that I didn't see this movie and certain scenes in that way so far. Anyway, his girlfriend meets this mentally disturbed patient as the movie goes on, which leads Patch Adams to a faith and life crisis for a short time. (From what I read, this student/girlfriend never existed. One might wonder why all of that is in the movie then.) She meets this patient when she and others help Patch Adams starting a free hospital, even though they're still students. Because Adams is shocked when he sees that desperate relatives are first asked to fill out forms and give information when their sick partner is clearly in pain and in need of immediate help.

The fact that Patch Adams is always happy, seemingly never learning and still gets top grades and that he's practising medicine without a doctor's degree, leads him to almost not be able to finish his studies. So he goes to the court and that fight fills the last about 15 minutes of the movie.

Like I already wrote, I don't know much about the life and works of the real Patch Adams. It may also be questionable why Patch Adams gets this girlfriend, who has to go through what we see in the movie. I have no idea how eccentric the real Patch Adams is or isn't and whether Robin Williams' portrayal is realistic or not. Some critics ask in a provocative way if you really like to be treated by a doctor wearing a red clown nose. I'd like to tell those people one thing. A couple of years back there was a hot summer and I went to see a female doctor. It was so hot that most girls and women wore short t-shirts or sleeveless tops. When the doctor came into the room, she didn't have her coat on. She asked me, if I was okay with that. I don't remember, what I actually said to her. Certainly something affirmative. Today and in hindsight I might have asked her, whether her knowledge is in her coat or in her head and depending on it, I would have insisted on the coat or not.

Tastes differ. Nobody has to like the movie “Patch Adams” or watch it. I still think some thoughts expressed in that movie are important: being friendly to the patients, asking them every now and then, how they're doing or what they would like, instead of talking about then in their presence in a sort of “Mrs. Broken-Leg” and “Mr. Terminal Cancer” sort of way. Especially the American health care system is in need of a change. The idea of a free hospital therefore is commendable and worthy of support. For fans of Robin Williams, who didn't know Patch Adams and his works, at least he showed them that and I think that's a good thing.

Until next blog,
sarah

Monday 29 September 2014

We're all humans part 2 or: Why I don't watch feature films set in germany anymore

Dear reader,

I don't watch feature films set in germany anymore. I do watch feature films, which aren't set in any particular time. But when they're set in a certain time, it seems that the german film industry and other countries, know nothing other than the nazi time. Certainly it's important that this time is never forgotten. I'm also sorry for what happened to those, who lived during that time. Still does every single film set in germany or where the time it's set in is relevant, be in the nazi time? Oh, I almost forgot. Alternatively: the time the wall still existed or when it fell. It's important to remember and something like that should never ever happen again. I'm just annoyed, that practically every historical germany type of feature film is reduced to that time in german as well as foreign films.

When I was studying, a student, who was about 20 years old, told us she had been to england once. She found some nice friends there. They walked away from her though, after they found out that she was german. Nazi. Yes, of course. Someone just 20 years of age is certainly a nazi, because she's german. Okay, there are still nazis around today, neo-nazis. So someone could possibly be a nazi even today and being young doesn't mean, they may not be one. But that doesn't mean every single german is also a nazi! Suppose her parents got her when they were about 30 years old. That would make her parents about 50 years now. So not even her parents lived during the nazi time, much less are they inevitably nazis, because they're german.

I liked the Hellboy movies by Guillermo del Toro. I already reviewed his movie Pan's Labyrinth last month. What I didn't like at all about the first Hellboy movie, was the prologue, the beginning. That's set in the nazi time, yes, with the bad germans. And because Hellboy, a devil, already is a good guy and the nazis are no longer as strong as they have been before Hitler's death, the movie needs another baddie. The classic baddie of the russian history is Grigorij Rasputin, the so called “faith healer”, who helped the tsar son on a regular basis. Some to this day see him as a sort of devil, or in fact “the” devil himself. Regardless what he was (first of all, he was a human, like all of us), he was an interesting person. I will write more about him in separate entry. I don't know yet when that will be.


In my entry Pride and prejudice I already wrote that I like the film music composer James Newton Howard and that I enjoy listening to his music. In 2008 the movie Defiance came out in cinemas. Maybe I'll write about that some day in a M&M post. Even though it's not one of my “favourite movies”. It is a good movie. I found it, because I was a bit more aware of what Daniel Craig was doing and I had seen him in the James Bond movies. When I read that James Newton Howard scored the film music to it, I listened to that. “Naturally” I liked what he had composed. With certain people I know, even when I don't like the movie, I can trust those people and enjoy it still, because of them. I liked James Newton Howards music enough, to make me curious. I read that the movie was about sibblings in russia, who were hiding and helping other nazi regufees. The movie is based on a true story. It seemed to me to be more of a sort of modern Robin Hood version rather than “the bad nazis once again” story. I'd describe that movie to others that way in fact. Yes, people are fleeing from the nazis. It's about a group of people, who start a new life in the woods and are willing to make this new home safe and defend it. But it's not so much about the nazis as such in the movie. To me it really is more like a Robin Hood story and without knowing the true, historical details of the life of those brothers, I liked the movie and find it worth watching. Defiance was however the only movie set in the historical nazi time, I deliberately watched. Valkyrie on the other hand did get good reviews, as far as I know. The Stauffenberg assassination attempt was talked about a bit in our history lessons a bit. I don't remember much about it though. So actually it is a suspenseful aspect of german history. And yet I delibertely didn't watch the movie to this day. Add the fact that Tom Cruise is in that film and I don't like him that much. Maybe it is a good movie. I'm willing to be convinced to watch it once, if it's really worth it. Right now, it's just another movie in the line of “the forever bad nazi” movies.


With all respect for what happened and for the persons, who suffered then and to this day, with all respect for history: it's starting to be enough for me. Write to me. If you know good movies, I am in fact open, despite maybe sounding bad, annoyed and closed. I am open for watching movies set in the nazi time or at the time of the fall of the wall or something. But I will not just like that watch those movies, because they're on telly just now or because everyone is rushing to watch them in the cinema. Because I think, those masses of nazi movies especially don't help other countries, to change the image of the bad german everlasting nazis. Certainly not all british or non-germany are as uneducated as those sad friends of that student. I still wish that they'd start making other movies now about germany and the germans and that germans aren't only the bad guys of the movie.

Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 27 September 2014

Remember not to forget

Dear reader,

I think Albert Einstein was right when he said, „The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Sadly this happens far to often and far to quickly when one is looking for something and can't find it. At least for me anyway. This happened again actually the day before yesterday.

Normally I keep a couple of things only at very few specific places and never anywhere else. I taught myself to do that automatically with my flat keys for example, to avoid looking for them for long and so I don't lose them. I keep the keys to my dad's flat, say, almost all the time in a certain backpack and in a specific inner pocket there. But a few days ago I had them in a different backpack, haven't been at my dad's, but I was in the neighbourhood and just in case, I had those keys with me. I did see those keys in this other, unfamiliar outside pocket several times the days before two days ago. I knew where they were. In the small outside pocket of the smaller backpack. I had seen them there the previous days again and again when I had the backpack in my hand and the outside pocket had been open. And yet I only checked the bigger pocket and also repeatedly(!) completely emptied the big backpack. It took me almost a quarter of an hour to finally take the small backpack again and for once also check the outside pocket to find the keys again.

Years ago I was looking for glasses once with blue tinted eyeglasses, which I have had. But did I have them still? In the past I had glasses at all times. Only a couple of years ago I started wearing them only occasionally. That's why I never used the sunglasses with the tinted eyeglasses. They didn't have the glasses I would have needed for my eyes sight. Did I have the glasses still? I checked every possible drawer of two specific cupboards in my room, also two drawers in the hallway. Several times. Because it's so much fun and suddenly the biggest things could have become tiny and hidden and be overlooked. I thought of Einstein checking everything the second time. After the third time I cursed myself for checking again, although I had found nothing the first two times already. I thought to myself, “I'll go to the living-room ask my mum. Maybe I don't even have the glasses anymore anyway. Checking a 100 times wouldn't help then. Maybe she knew something. Should I still have the glasses, I trust my unconscious and wish for to just walk up to the right drawer to find them there.” I went to my mum. She knew what I was looking for, but couldn't remember if we still had the glasses or not or where they might be. I went back to my room. Purposefully I stood in front of a commode where the guinea pigs and their cage were sitting on. There is only one drawer there where the glasses might be, in which I keep necklaces and earrings and also a big magnifying glass with a horn grip, too. If the glasses were there at all, it would be in that drawer. The other drawers had paper, note books and notes. I really pulled out the drawer this time and in the back of a corner there really was the small blue paper box in which I kept the blue tinted eyeglasses. I thanked my unconscious for guiding me to them that way.

Many scientists agree now that our brain never forgets and in theory we could remember everything that happened once. The individual information gets displaced by other information and new information and with that they fade into the background so much that we seemingly forgot them. Methods like the memory palace can help to organise and sort through thoughts and memories and find them faster, have them more “handy”.

Dr. John Watson gives a quite good description of how the memory palace works in “The Hounds of Baskerville” (Sherlock season 2, episode 2). Sherlock Holmes knows that he's got important information in his head “somewhere buried deep”. He tells John and Dr. Stapleton to get out, he'd go to his mind palace now.
“His what?”, asks Stapleton confused.
John explains to her, “Oh, his mind palace. It's a memory technique, a sort of mental map. You plot a map with a location, it doesn't have to be a real place. You deposit memories there. Theoretically, you never forget anything. All you do is find your way back to it.
“So this imaginary location could be anything?”, asks Stapleton. “A house or a street?”
“Yeah”, confirms John.
“But he said "palace"”, bursts out Stapleton. “He said it was a palace!”
“Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?”, says John almost a bit bored and maybe a bit annoyed that his friend has to boast with a palace in his head.

The way to information or memories is in fact important, too and doesn't have to be a mental walk or visual, seen in your mind. In “Dynamic Learning” by Robert Dilts and Tod Epstein, Epstein describes his work with an old lady. With her eyesight fading, she also had difficulties remembering certain things, which didn't cause problems before. Epstein noticed that the lad was visualising and thinking in pictures to retrieve memories. With fading eyesight, it became more difficult for her to see in hear mind. Epstein helped her getting back to memories through other senses. Which helped her memory getting better again, too. Before reading “Dynamic Learning” I only read in Thomas Harrison's books about the memory palace and after Derren Brown's “Tricks Of The Mind” I started creating a sort of system for myself. The suggestion that the way we retrieve information and that the senses we use for that are relevant as well, was new and an important aspect. It didn't change anything for me personally, not that I'm aware of anyway. Nevertheless it is something especially people working with other people, old people specifically, should keep in mind. Apparent memory loss doesn't necessarily have anything to do with not remembering.

Until next blog,
sarah

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Sweet dreams (Father, don't you see that I am burning?)

Dear reader,

let me tell you a bedtime story. One of Freud's clients came to him and told him of a father, who had the following dream (from “The Interpretation of Dreams“ by Sigmund Freud):

A father had been watching day and night beside the sick-bed of his child. After the child died, he retired to rest in an adjoining room, but left the door ajar so that he could look from his room into the next, where the child's body lay surrounded by tall candles. An old man, who had been installed as a watcher, sat beside the body, murmuring prayers. After sleeping for a few hours the father dreamed that the child was standing by his bed, clasping his arm and crying reproachfully: "Father, don't you see that I am burning?" The father woke up and noticed a bright light coming from the adjoining room. Rushing in, he found that the old man had fallen asleep, and the sheets and one arm of the beloved body were burnt by a fallen candle.”

How could a dream like that happen? One option may be that the father sensed the smoke or the light and integrated it into his dream. That's how we're supposedly dream anyway, we dream of things we experienced during the day and/or actual sensations we experience now creep into the dream. A logical explanation. But it doesn't explain why time and again there are people burning to death in their bed after having fallen asleep with a light cigarette or something. Also they say about hypnosis and trance that if we really have to be awake, because there's danger ahead, we'd be out of hypnosis or trance instantly and ready to act. Without having experienced that personally, I do believe that about hypnosis and trance to be true. But it doesn't explain the burn victims.

Next theory. We enjoy dreaming. Likewise many people enjoy being in a trance. That means that in order to wake up, we need either a strong outside stimulus or the dream has to be so uncomfortable, that being awake seems more pleasant and that's why we wake up. The father dreamed of his son, to be close to him. But the fire was a stimulus that needed to action. So he dreamed of his son waking him up. Sounds logical, doesn't it? Maybe. But much like the paragraph above, shouldn't we wake up with a fire all the time? Either waking up from the fire itself or from dreams forcing us to wake up?

Taking into account the possibility of a life after death or that the soul lives on after death or something like that, the son could also have contacted his father for real in or through that dream. Although personally I rule out that theory. Because I know that Harry Houdini wanted to contact his mother very much. After he was dead, he would have done everything possible, to contact his living wife. Even if he tried, there's no account of him actually succeeding in it to this day.

What then can we make of this dream? Your theories?

Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 20 September 2014

Sometimes unconscious is better

Dear reader,

I'm very consciously writing about the “unconscious” and not the “subconscious”. The “subconscious” doesn't exist. It's just what many, sadly also experts for example my professors at university used for the word “unconscious”. Even Wikipedia, otherwise despised by teachers and professors points this out. A search for the "subconscious" does get you to a separate page in english, unlike the german website, which just redirects you to the “unconscious mind” with just a paragraph that the word “unconscious” is just everyday speech. Very correct. There are areas in our mind, doing and perception, which are conscious and others are not conscious. Unconscious. But not subconscious. I will not correct or rebuke anyone about it who is using the word “subconscious”. I find it sad that even experts don't use the correct word. I assume it's because everyone knows what it is anyway. So the “subconscious” and the “unconscious” are used synonymously. I for one will write about the “unconscious” now and in the future and not about the “subconscious”.

One aspect, which got into the consciousness more especially because of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is gestures, body posture, body position, facial expressions. It's time and again suggested, in order to get good contact with your dialogue partner (rapport), to adjust your own body posture and body position to the one of your partner. For example if the other person is crossing his or her legs, you do the same. Either crossing the same leg over the other, say both crossing the left one over the right or if the other one has the right one over the left, you have your left one over your right.

Outside features are not the only ones you can mirror. Speaking rate and breathing are also things you can match, among other things. Feel free to read up on that some more, if you're interested.

It's important and correct to notice body posture, body position, facial expressions, gestures, speaking rate and all of that. Especially it's important to notice certain signals and perceive them. Even more so when they are expressions of disagreement or otherwise negative. Everyone should be able to see those signs, to be able to prevent unpleasant processes of a discussion, especially when it's a negotiation meeting.

Far too often people forget to mention that mirroring should be used carefully and not be done strictly all the way through in a conscious way throughout a whole meeting, especially not a long one. If you use it too often and for too long to essentially mimic aspects of your partner, it's going to be a silly copy and instead of positive rapport, it'll give the other person a bad feeling at best and he or she will feel offended. Even if the people don't know or notice exactly what you do. I guarantee you that they will at least get a strange feeling.

Personally I'd recommend you to use body posture and that consciously at the beginning of a meeting and once it's going, to just let it flow and keep it going on a more unconscious level, only to be aware of signals, but not to abuse them, only to notice. It can be a lot of fun to have a great talk with another person and to keep it at an unconscious level like that, only to notice consciously how movements and positions are flowing in sync with the other person. It's not only fun to be in a discussion like that, but also to just watch two or more people doing it. All knowledge you could and should have about this to a certain degree, there certainly are reasons why so many things are rather unconscious for us. Some unconscious things are better consciously left unconscious.

In the beginning it can actually help to consciously cheat. I once had to give a talk in an english class. I was very nervous. But I knew enough about body language, to at least give the impression of confidence. At first I was very nervous and very conscious of my body posture. It often helps to fake a body posture to get to the actual feeling. Much like Charlie Brown describes it, as I posted already in my post about “Showing feelings”. My teacher actually gave me that feedback right away that I appeared very confident and sure-footed. She had no idea...


Until next blog,
sarah

Friday 29 August 2014

M&M: Pan's Labyrinth

Dear reader,

children are often a symbol of innocence. But even though the children may fight to be good and do their best to help, that's by far not what their parents may be like at all. That's certainly and especially true for Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) in Guillermo del Toro's “Pan's Labyrinth” from the year 2006. Ofelia and her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) are on their way to Ofelia's stepfather, the fascist captain Vidal (Sergi López).

The captain strives against the partisans and also shows no heart for Ofelia either. She realises that in their first meeting right away. In the night she can't sleep. An insect, which she has met on her way to the captain, comes up again. It's not a normal insect. Not just because it's so big. When Ofelia shows her fairy tale book to the insect, it turns into a fairy, like one out of that book. The fairy guides Ofelia to the near by labyrinth. In the middle of the labyrinth is a statue of a girl with a baby and Pan sleeping there is waking up. He tells Ofelia that she's a princess turned human and now that she's human, she lost all her memory of being a princess. Her father, the king, is waiting for her. She has to succeed with three tasks, to break the curse.

Doug Jones, who's playing Pan, is in full costume and mask, as in other Guillermo del Toro movies, like Abe Sapien in Hellboy. His character is a rather strange one. On the one hand he helps Ofelia, on the other hand the tasks he sets for her, lead her to be in trouble a lot. The tasks and troubles of the fairy tale world are certainly correlating with the dangers and brutality of the adult world. That's especially true for the stepfather. When he finds out that the housemaid Mercedes and the doctor Ferreiro are actually helping the partisans, the stepfather doesn't hold back at all.

Is Pan on Ofelia's side after all? Or did he use her for his own purposes all along? Does captain Videl have a heart for his stepdaughter in the end? Or did the war turn his heart to stone? See for your self and make your own decision.

I'm mostly impressed how the movie combines true history in a very intriguing way with elements of fairy tales. You can trust Guillermo del Toro with horror and fantasy anyway. The total love and care put into the movie comes through to me. Especially how the creation of the characters and portrayal of creatures of the fairy tales world. Even though the movie clearly uses elements of fairy tales, it's far from being a children's movie. At best it's an adult version of a fairy tale movie. A very intriguing movie, but nothing for the sentimental, squeamish minded.

Until next blog,
sarah

Sunday 24 August 2014

Showing feelings

Dear reader,

German readers are probably still remembering Arno Funke, who under the name “Dagobert” (the German name for Scrooge McDuck) extorted big stores between 1988 and 1994. He worked as a painter of motorcycles and sport cars. To finance a start as self-employer, he extorted money from the stores. Later he said that the fumes from the workplace damaged his brain and lead to depression. In his autobiography (only available in German as “Mein Leben als Dagobert” (My life as Dagobert)), he writes that he wasn't aware of the slow process to depression and the numbness at that time. His arrest and therapy lead him to gain access to his feelings again. Only then was he able to paint again and be creative.

Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft are portrayed as rather cold. In the BBC series “Sherlock” there is a scene in “A Scandal in Belgravia” (Season 2, episode 1) in which Sherlock and Mycroft stand together at the morgue of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Sherlock just identified a corpse as Irene Adler. In the hallway he hears crying people pass by. “They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?”, Sherlock asks his brother. Because although Sherlock has met Irene Adler earlier and was somewhat fascinated by her, her death at Christmas Eve doesn't seem to move him or Mycroft at all. “All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage. Sherlock”, is Mycroft's reply. He does show some feelings for his little brother though, because he gives him a cigarette, although Sherlock endeavours to quit smoking.

Sherlock Holmes is certainly a fictional character. So it's questionable how realistic such a cold person actually is. Although sociopaths indeed have no empathy for others, are in a way cut off from their feelings, especially feelings for others.

Hard and annoying as it may be sometimes, to be overwhelmed by our own feelings. In the end it's probably better still and more human, to have feelings and to show them. There is a German saying literally “An Indian knows no pain.” Meaning that one must be brave and not be over-sensitive to pain. It's totally absurd. Girls and women are probably more emotional generally. They, after all, are mainly responsible to take care of the children. So it makes sense that they can show feelings easily and read them in others, in the children and react accordingly. That doesn't mean that consequently the boys and men have to be “tough” and mustn't show any feelings at all. Feelings are part of life. Feelings are part of being human. Whether we like it or not. In the long run, it's not good to hide feelings or swallow them. As shown in the case of Arno Funke, something like that is likely to lead to something negative and we lose something. Even though feelings sometimes keep us from doing things and overwhelm us and we can't think straight, although we wish we could. Feelings are like a river, they change. A situation totally wears us out at one point, but in time we'll get over it and we move on.

In case you do want to feel down or depressed once, follow Charlie Brown's lead:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqTeUoxESw_oxFbTBn55jRstKMrG9z1PsQrZJHeEmF3ZYEKHJK_Z6Dvjj_FBOZa_1tyN6cXTs7Og5lGMGnefUDTPlww5proAa6qdQjXpXshGu7khPNcKq90i1eWMtBMXWWbBOk-vpKNLM/s400/snoopy.gif

Until next blog,
sarah

Monday 18 August 2014

My wonder garden (or Sleeping fast part 2)

Dear reader,

I already wrote about what may help to go to sleep faster once (Sleeping fast... if you want it and remember...). Today I want to share with you a method, which has helped me some years ago. I don't use it much these days, because I can go to sleep fast and easy and the methods I described in my earlier post help me sufficiently enough. Nevertheless the one I like to tell you about today is also very effective. When I started using it, I didn't know it is actually a hypnosis method. Only later on when I read about hypnosis, did I recognise this method again. What I am going to describe now, is purely my own imagination. Of course you're totally free to change elements of it as you please and envision them.

I'd have my eyes closed and would imagine a staircase out of bricks in a building of bricks. Something like a hallway in a castle. The staircase were clearly visible, although the hallway wasn't lit as such. I never counted the steps and didn't walk them very consciously. Sometimes I would sit on the top step for a while and wait a moment, before standing up and starting to go down. Sometimes, after a few steps down, I'd just “be” at the bottom. At the end of the stairs there'd be a closed round wooden door with a door knob.

Behind the door is a garden with a path with a bend. The garden is blooming with lots of colourful flowers. The reader might enjoy bending down and take a sniff at some of the flowers. Are there butterflies in your garden, too? Let's go further down the path. First a bit more straight on. Then there's the bend. A bit further straight ahead. The path leads to a sitting area with a couple of chairs and a bench.

It's always a pleasure and surprise for me to see who's sitting there at the table waiting for me. Sometimes the two chairs that I have there are taken and also the bench has one or two persons sitting there. Sometimes there's just one person there. In any case never a person I really know, but always people I'd assume to be enjoying their presence or people I'd like to have conversations with or that might inspire me. Magicians like the “psychological illusionist” (as he calls himself) Derren Brown, who himself uses a lot of hypnosis and could “hypnotise” me to sleep. Although so far nobody spoke a word in my garden. Or Teller of the magic duo Penn & Teller. During performances he never speaks. If he does speak, it's always with his back to the audience or with his mouth covered. But on YouTube you'll find videos in which he does talk. So I do know his voice. In the garden he wouldn't speak though. Most of the time I'd find him there with a coin in his hand and he'd roll a coin across his knuckles. His decades of practise and experience make tricks like that look much easier than they are for me. With him it's a flowing movement and he could do it en passant. Charming. Bewitching.

After sitting there for a bit and watching Teller with the coin or just enjoying the presence of people there, I'd fall asleep. If the bench is free, I might lay down there and go to sleep in the garden and for real.

Like I already wrote above, you are free to create your own garden and take from mine what you like. Still I'd like to give you a couple of things to consider to get the best effect from this: 
  • If you want an exact number of steps to the door, I'd recommend 20.
  • Also I'd suggest to take a sniff in your garden and sense smells at least once, even if you don't specifically bend down to a flower. Far too often there's talk and suggestions only about visual aspects in exercises and methods like this. It's a fact however that we find it easier to get into a situation, the more senses are activated. Smell and taste usually are ignored. By smelling a flower, you'd have at least have smell in a bit once.
  • Of course a sitting area is no must have, neither is having one or more persons sitting there. Create your own surprises for yourself, like I keep surprising myself about who'd be sitting there.
  • For sort of “security reasons” I'd recommend to you, if you have persons, to make it people you don't know and are rather very unlikely to ever meet. Known persons may hurt or disappoint you some day. Those persons are not very likely to be in your garden anymore. Generally it's still better to not have people you know in places like that garden from the start. That way the garden is forever a safe place full of joy. 
My hypnosis friends (you know who you are) might have other suggestions to consider. Maybe I'll add more in my text depending on your comments or if I think of additional important aspects. For now that's it for me. I wish you much fun and joy in your garden and sweet dreams. If you like, you can share your experiences here.
Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 16 August 2014

We're all humans

Dear reader,
on july, 1st this year Barbara Frost wrote in the Guardian an article entitled Two girls died looking for a toilet. This should make us angry, not embarrassed, in which she told about the sad destiny of two cousins, 14 and 16 years of age in india. They two of them were raped and later killed looking for a toilet. Everybody should safely have access to water and a toilet.

It was only a couple of days later when it took me almost two hours to get to my dad. Usually it takes me about 30 to 40 minutes, unless it's sunday with longer times between to trams arriving. It was a week day that day. At first the time when the tram would be arriving was wrong. The next should be arriving in 1 minute. I waited 20 minutes in the end. There was no sign or announcement, as there usually would be. If I had know this, I'd have walked to the next station. Would have taken me 10 minutes and I'd have to change trams there anyway. I waited for the connecting tram for another 10 minutes then. Four stops before my final stop, the tram came to a hold. I can hardly believe that I'm hesitating now and that I'm desperate for words here, to write this. I hope and think that readers of my blog know how I mean this though. A group of students had been on the tram, too, and one girl had made fun of a black man, who ended up pushing her. The tram got stopped and the police was called. I was annoyed from all the delay my travel had cost me already and got out to walk the final bit to the train station down the shopping street. The last thing I noticed was that the black man apparently only spoke english. Which seemed to made it bit more difficult to communicate with him.

Last year I was in france with my dad and sister for what would have been my mom's birthday. As I got out of the train in paris, a police man stopped me at the platform. I didn't understand what he said to me in french. He asked me in english, if I spoke english. I didn't get to answer him. My dad had come back and my sister, too. As the police man saw the two, he just let me go. Only much later it occurred to my dad that maybe my shawl, which I have had around my shoulders, could have been the reason for the police to stop me. The shawl is grey with black squares connected with black lines the squares. You could think it had an arabic or muslim pattern. I got stopped for a shawl I had? I don't know if this actually was the reason, but it's indeed the only one I can think of. Thinking back I resent that I didn't ask them about it. I would have liked to know. What does it matter what someone is wearing for the character of a person or what that person thinks or what they might do?

Some time ago I heard on the telly a story about a french woman, if I remember it correctly. She studied islamic culture or arabic language or something like that and wanted to go to america once. They wouldn't let her in. I don't remember if the reason was mentioned or not. Probably they feared she might be a potential terrorist, what with her studies.

Many years ago I had contact with someone using a chat program and he was living in an area where they practised voodoo. I don't remember where he lived exactly. I had deactivated the profile pictures on my program. He had put up a picture of himself. He was black. He really liked me and he wanted me to be his girlfriend. Sadly his english was rather poor. So I had difficulty explaining to him that with me living in germany, it would be impossible for me to be his proper girlfriend. He got angry. He said it was his skin colour. I would despise him now, because he was black. I tried to make it clear to him that until just now I didn't know he was black, because I had the pictures deactivated. He didn't understand me, no matter what simple words I used to explain it to him. He insisted that his skin colour was the reason for my rejection. He was certain. He said, he'd go to a voodoo priest to curse me. So I'd be forever unhappy and something bad would happen to me. You'll see, he wrote.

And then there's this song Prejudices by Tim Minchin. As far as I know it came from an incident after he performed an older version of a song in which he sings about black people. Actually it's precisely that very point, that there is no “the black” and they “all” do this one thing, because they're black and all black people do it. After a concert some black people came up to him and told him to not sing those lines anymore, or else... Sad really, because it seems they didn't get the point of the song. The song is called “If you really love me” and the lines went, “We go together like a cracker and brie, like racism and ignorance, like niggers and R&B.” He makes a similar, to me equally important point, in the first part of his song Confessions. Women should not be afraid to walk the streets at night and fear for their life.

Penn Jillette of the magic duo Penn & Teller published short videos, vlogs, years ago. I don't remember the title and can't find a certain one online anymore. In it he talked about the fact that he doesn't judge people by their skin colour. In the end we're all equal. We're all humans. The skin colour says nothing about my behaviour. Our behaviour reflects our character. The character of a person has nothing to do with skin colour. I wish more people would think like that. The skin colour of a person should never be an issue.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 31 July 2014

M&M: Stay

Dear reader,


in 2005 the movie “Stay” came out, one of my favourite movies. The story is somewhat dark and the ending is frustratingly open. What I like most though are the visual elements: the use of colours and transitions from one scene to another. Also I like Ewan McGregor and Ryan Gosling, who are both playing the lead roles in this movie.


Ryan Gosling is playing Henry Letham, a young man, who we see driving a car at the beginning. Then a tire blows and an accident happens. Cut. He's sitting on the street and as the camera moves away from him allowing us a wider view of the scene, we see the car burning behind him. He stands up and just walks along the street.


The psychiatrist Dr. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) had a bad night and overslept. But this should only be the beginning of a couple of very strange days for him. On the university campus he meets his friend and teacher Lila (Naomi Watts), who asks him what's wrong. The neighbours baby kept him awake. Lila is confused. The neighbours are 80 years old. Sam takes over for a sick colleague, among her patients is also Henry. He doesn't like the fact that suddenly someone else is his therapist. Is his therapist unable to cope with him and let that other one take over? But eventually Henry opens up and tells about his plan: “Saturday. Midnight.” That's when he's going to kill himself. On his 21st birthday.


Over the course of this movie, we see Henry and others driving in a car. Those scenes in the car are from a different time or indeed a different world(?) than the rest and in fact most part of the movie. I think I don't anticipate too much, when I write, that Henry in fact was badly injured during the car accident and is about to die. The psychiatrist “story” is all in his head and is his way of thinking whether he wants to live or die. He wants to live really. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone to Sam for help, who is in reality the driver of another car and now is giving first aid. Another woman, who Henry in his mind makes to be Sam's girlfriend, checks the car and tells him that the others are dead. Many things and people in the movie are twisted in Henry's head and used for the reality in his mind. Finding those things, what is used and how and finding what's reality, makes the movie fun and interesting for me. Henry's full name is Henry Letham. Letham being an anagram for Hamlet. A young woman, who served Henry a couple of times in a diner and could maybe help Henry is also actually rehearsing for a Hamlet play.


Some wonder about the ending and what Henry's choice was in the end. Because we never actually see whether he is dead or alive. Many are certain that his decision is obvious however. Watch the movie and make your own decision about that. For those of you who like rather calm soundtracks “Stay” might be one for you. It was written and played by Asche & Spencer.


Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 19 July 2014

Multitasking is bulls-hit

Dear reader,

it's often said that we women are more capable of doing several things at once more than men can do it. Women are capable of multitasking, men aren't. Or are we all in the end incapable of multitasking really? Maybe I can write this here and at the same time have the music on and I do have a chat window open on top of that. I could certainly also do some exercises that can be done sitting, while I'm writing here. Mentally my attention is definitely divided though and not truly totally with either of these things. Without actually researching for studies on this, I think that the concentration and productivity decreases, if you do several times “at the same time” so to speak. Because you'd not give your full attention to either of them. Not to mention the question of for how long you can keep up doing several things at once, dividing your attantion between them and staying mentally and physically healthy. 

Penn Jillette of the magic duo Penn & Teller read about this once that you should not listen to music while riding your bike. Because it would limit your attention of what's going on on the street. Strictly speaking you should have your radio or music off in your car. Penn actually did that for a while. What he found out is not really surprising: he found that he was paying more attention to the road traffic and would notice more things.

There are different versions of this story of a zen master. He was asked what his secret to enlightenment was. “When I sleep, I just sleep. When I walk, I just walk. When I eat, I just eat”, the zen master said. The student was confused. He was very certain he did that, too. “No”, the zen master said. “When you wake up, you're thinking about what to eat. When you eat, you think about where to go next.”

For those knowing this story, there's a sort of follow-up story to that. The zen master is sitting at the table one morning eating his breakfast and reading the newspaper. “Master”, the student says. “Didn't you say when you eat, you just eat. When you walk, you just walk? Now you're sitting here, eating your breakfast and reading the newspaper. Doesn't that contradict your teachings?” To which the zen master said, “When I read the newspaper and eat breakfast, I just read the newspaper and eat breakfast.”

Until next blog,
sarah