Sunny way home

 

"EGAL" (Whatever) - A point of view that would do us good from time to time. And me close to my home:

Two years later...

To the best of my memory a person from work had a book from me for over 2 years... and didn't even start reading it. Because I wanted to read the book again for certain reasons, I asked her to give it back to me. Which she did today. My desk had enough free space for the things to be put there, but instead that person decided to put them in the cupboard behind my back and in the lower bottom part of it. I wanted one book back from her. I had forgotten over the time that she had two books and a DVD as well.

I pretended that I hadn't seen them, although I saw them almost immediately when I came into the room. Since that person's work day ended earlier than mine, she told me before she left that she had put the things in the cupboard behind me. I turned around and only said something like, "Ah, ok. Thanks."

I don't have to understand everything from other people and as of now I don't need to have anything to do with this person. Apart from the fact that we still share the same office.

Only partly visible in the photo, these are the things I got back (all well worth watching/reading in my opinion):

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

The Wave by Morton Rhue

The DVD of the movie Little Children

The most important thing in life

Dear reader,

the other day I went shopping and stopped shortly when I saw that a woman was deeply absorbed with her smartphone and walking right towards me, apparently without seeing me. I said nothing and just stood there. Only when she almost collided with me, did she look up shocked, said sorry and walked past me.

Several years ago one of my aunts (actually great aunt) was visiting us. Nothing against my aunt, I like her. But she was regularly phoning someone on her mobile and writing SMS to others or was on the internet writing emails to others. That went so far that my mother, who otherwise was really patient with others, once told her to put away the phone, please. Said a sixty-something to her 80-years old aunt! That was quite something!

I once heard of a group of Asian people, who reportedly went in a museum with a video camera recording everything. I assume it was to have a look at the art „in peace“ at home or in a hotel later? But who knows if that story is actually true... Hopefully not! Maybe it was just a photo camera. I'm not sure if museums would allow video cameras for security reasons.

On the train there are a lot of people busy with their smartphones. When somebody was sitting next to me, I was looking at what the person was doing. Some chatted, many were playing. Mostly something like Tetris where bricks where coming down and had to be put in certain order at the bottom or some balls were coming from above and had to be shot with a sort of „gun“. So all in all games, which are solely there to kill time. Nothing against those sort of games or people, who play them...

I'm member of a forum where someone has a signature under each of his entries. I found out now where that line is from, namely „Fast & Furious 5“. A character there says, “But the most important thing in life will always be the people in this room. Right here. Right now.“ I like that quote and I can understand that someone would choose it for their signature. I don't know the movie and I'm not sure how it was meant in the scene. But I like the thought that the most important thing in life are the person around me at that moment or the persons I'm with. The screen-society so to say, which is currently existing, where many people only scare on their screen and sometimes even walk into others, because they don't notice their surroundings anymore, I find that very sad.

The other day I came across an article online. A 14-years old girl was injured after she had crossed a street starring at her smartphone, busy installing updates, when she didn't see a car coming. It was only said that the girl had been injured, not how much. Luckily the girl was only injured and at least the car driver had paid attention.

The doctor and psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffman published a collection of stories in 1845 under the title „Struwelpeter“, one of them is “The Story of Johnny Head-in-Air” (German: “Hans Guck-in-die-Luft), a boy, who's so busy looking up in the air in stead of anywhere else, that he first runs over a dog and then, to the entertainment of the fish, he falls into the river, including his writing-book, which is then lost. Maybe the story is exaggerated and fictional, but on principle, it doesn't seem that unrealistic at all.

My mother sent me a picture once, which she had received from somebody else. The question underneath it read something like, “What is he doing there?”

Here is the picture:

(source: http://i.imgur.com/oHuAH.jpg)

Until next blog,
sarah

What the... hypnosis

Dear reader,

hypnosis is when someone is swinging a pocket watch back and forth in front of you, counting and telling you that at some point, you won't be able to keep your eyes open and sleep. That is at best how many think about stage-hypnosis.

This was supposed to be a post to introduce you to some hypnosis-people, especially hypnotherapists, meaning people, who use hypnosis for therapy, combined with a bit of history of hypnosis. That's what I had planned for February. As you can see, as a result I didn't write anything at all in February.

The truth is that I have barely any knowledge about the history of hypnosis. I have read two or three general books on hypnosis. Of course they had bits about the history and names of famous people of the past, thanks to YouTube I was able to watch interviews with hypnotists and hypnotherapists and see demonstrations or seminars. But apart from Dr. Milton Erickson, I hardly know more than the name of most people.

In addition to that I noticed during the past couple of months that I forgot now things I knew quite well, say half a year ago or so. Including terms I was able to explain or at least use without any problems back then. Am I getting old? Or am I becoming like Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't know that the earth goes around the sun, because it's irrelevant for his life?

Here comes what I'd like to share with you, for which I don't have to consult (my) books: my history of hypnosis. (Confession: I didn't use a book, but I did look up the dates on wikipedia.)

The name used very often as the sort of father of hypnosis or hypnotherapy is Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Years ago I liked the actor Alan Rickman a lot. I like him still today, but I'm not that much familiar with his more recent works now as I was years ago. In any case, he was in the movie “Mesmer” playing him in 1994. The frame story of the movie is a court hearing, which Mesmer has to go through. The treatment method of the doctor are so unconventional for his time that many thought he was a charlatan. That's why he was in court for. Later I read a couple of books about Mesmer to find out, what parts of the story in the movie had really happened. Without knowing it, this was my introduction to hypnosis, I guess. Although Mesmer didn't call what he did hypnosis. At first he worked with magnets. In one book I read that story that he was taking part in a sort of parade, when someone came up to him asking for help, because no other doctor was so close and available. He went and was lead to the ill person and only realised when he was there, that he had left the magnets in the coach at the parade. If lifeless stones and magnets were able to help, surely he, Mesmer, a warm living being full of energy, must be able to help with touch and strokes with his hands. Indeed he was able to help, so he didn't use the magnets anymore after that experience. He called what he did “animal magnetism”. Today it's also known as “mesmerism”. His name even became an adjective in English as “mesmerising” (to describe something as being fascinating or hypnotising).

Independently from Mesmer back then, also the Chinese medicine assumes an energy, known as chi or qi. Reiki is a method practised to this day, in which the hands are used to heal.

But Mesmer wasn't quite the beginning. Even the Egypts and Greeks knew sleep temples. Priests, who at that time were also functioning as doctors, healed a variety of illnesses through rites with putting the sick into a healing sleep.

The miracle healings of Jesus, his apostles and the early Christians came most likely often with hypnosis, too. Imposition of hands and fixation of the eyes (fixation) e. g. with a shining metal plate, are typical practices.

Another surgeon one should know is the Scotsman James Braid (1795-1860). He too studied magnetism and coined the term “neurypnology”, so still not “hypnosis” as a term. In Braid's time anaesthesia was still in its infancy. His book is called: Neurypnology; Or, the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism.

James Esdaile (1808-1859) on the other hand reminds me a bit of Erickson. Esdaile had asthma and he moved from Great Britain to India in the hope that the climate there would be better for him. Erickson got vaccinated after a bike accident, but he got an anaphylactic shock from the vaccination, which nearly killed him and as a result he developed allergies. Therefore he moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Anyway, it shouldn't surprise you that Esdailes book title is: Mesmerism in India and Its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine.

Another doctor, who should be mentioned is the psychiatrist and neurologist Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919), who studied the reactions to suggestions. Suggestions are also an important aspect with hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Consequently his form of therapy was the “suggestive therapy”, on which he wrote several books, for example: Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism.

By the way, the so called Russian miracle healer Rasputin (1869-1916) also used hypnosis to help especially the tsar son, when he had one of his bleedings again. I find it inappropriate, to call the treatments of the tsar son miracle healings though. Because Rasputin didn't heal him from hemophilia. He only stopped the immediate bleedings. More on Rasputin in another entry later.

Many people certainly don't know that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) studied with the neurologist Jean-Martin Charco (1825-1893) and used hypnosis before he invented his psychoanalysis. Later he turned away from hypnosis. Surely in part to spend more time with his own ideas and psychoanalysis. I could also imagine that in part he also didn't like being close to clients and maybe even touch them, since one aspect with psychoanalysis is precisely that of keeping distance and interfering as little as possible.

If I had to write more detailed, I could write a book and would have to look up things more after all. For now this should be enough with the people mentioned to start with. Should hypnotists, hypnotherapists or hypnosis-enthusiasts read this post, I'd be happy to read your additional names and comments.

Until next blog,

sarah

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

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

We're all humans

Dear reader,

on july, 1^st 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

Everything used to be better in the old days?

Dear reader,

2003 was the year in which our family-computer got an internet connection. We had a world of options!

We created e-mail addresses and suddenly we were writing much cheaper and faster e-mails to long distant family and friends. Do you remember when you wrote your last letter to someone all in handwriting? A letter, not a postcard! My last handwritten letter to someone was last year. More of a sort of accident, because I needed to send something for a new ID card and had no printer. My last letter before that? No idea. How about you?

How did you order presents for last christmas? I bought exactly one present in a shop. Everything else I ordered comfortably online over the internet. Somewhat sad really.

Anyway, what did we do without the internet in the earlier days? Read more, I suppose. In november 2012 the german newspaper “Frankfurter Rundschau” filed an application for bankruptcy at the court in Frankfurt on the Main. The printing costs were too high compared with the number of sales. Why buy a paper anyway, if you can read everything online for free? In february 2013 it was announced that the paper will keep on going still.

Maybe everything was better in the old days. At least many of us didn't spend that much time in front of a screen and went out with others more often. Are computers a bad thing as such though? The world is changing, that's just the way it is and cultures and people are changing. In the old days there were only books in libraries. Now you can get CDs and DVDs there as well. In the old days there were catalogues of libraries in boxes and information on index cards on paper. Now everything is in computers and you can search easily and fast. And you don't even have to go to the library to find they don't have the book you're looking for or you can't currently borrow it. We can check that online at home. Contrary to the online shopping, which makes me somewhat sad, although I do that, too, I quite like the online search in library catalogues. Or maybe not. Because without it, at least I'd be outside once... The computer doesn't, at least not for now, replace humans totally. The work does change a bit with computers though. I also don't yet see the danger of technological changes and inventions endangering our work place as such. Machines taking over the world? I don't think so. Because for that the machines (for now) have too little of a life of their own and in the end it's up to us, the users of the technology to decide if or how much and how to use it. Even though some tv programs by now are thought to be rather low and stupid by many people, I still trust the humans to not be controlled by machines that much in a sense that in the end the machines control the humans.

Or maybe they do? Because, what's left in a time of a black out that disables our devices? Even if in our desperation, we'd turn to our books, we'd need light for that to read them. Although that should cause no problem with the modern eBook-readers, even in a time of a black out. Or if you've got enough lights in the house and a match or fire-lighter.

In 2012 an australian film came out called Underground: The Julian Assange Story telling the story of the youth of Julian Assange, the founder and chief editor of WikiLeaks. There's a scene where the young Julian sits in his room with his girlfriend. It's already dark outside. She tells him of a place where she'd like to go and asks him, if he likes to travel. He tells her that he already has. When he's hacking computers, he travels all the time. Sitting here in his bedroom and at the same time being at the other side of the world. Then he asks her to look outside the window and pick a suburb. She does. Julian types in a few lines on the computer and suddenly all the lights to out in the suburb she told him. “Did you just do that?”, she asks him. He doesn't reply, just tells her to pick another suburb. “No”, she says. “All those poor people are in the dark.” “They are happy”, he says. “Did you know that nine months after a black out, there's always a rise in the number of child births?”

Finally the vision of the “Factory of the Future” as Warren G. Bennis saw it:

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Until next blog,
sarah

The Noseless People

Dear reader,

I think there's a reason why the nose is above the mouth. Most of us might notice that especially when they've got a cold. Can't breathe through the nose and we're not really hungry. My guinea pigs, like probably most other animals too, decide whether they can or want to eat something at first by sniffing. If it smells good, they nib a bit, if it taste good, they eat it.

I wonder, whether a good sense of smell plays any part with eating and the body weight of a person. Even if it's relevant, it certainly doesn't come first. But maybe still a little bit somehow? Do bigger people maybe have a worse sense of smell?

Some people definitely seem to not have a good nose. It's better again now. Some years ago even, I had the assumption that especially female teenagers must have taken a bath in spray deodorants or perfume. I had their smell in my nose long after the distance between us was quite big. Awful!

I know that some people are really sensitive to too strong deodorants or perfumes. I don't have that problem myself. Not generally anyway. Some time this year I was shopping. I sensed the smell of a strong perfume of a woman already before I entered the shop. I entered the shop with her and I tried to get out of her way in the shop as much as I could. I have nothing against perfumes, but that was too much. Unfortunately she was right in front of me at the cash register. Unfortunatelier the cue was long and I had to wait accordingly. I'm really, really not sensitive. But this one time I got very sick from that strong smell, which I could not escape. I almost felt like coughing or doing something else that indirectly hinted that something wasn't quite right. But I was polite and didn't do or say anything. I couldn't have taken it a minute longer than I actually had to. I could even sense her smell when I got out of the shop. When I was out, I breathed a couple of times out through my nose. That was really terrible.

The other day I was at the bus station. Next to me was a teenager and she was smoking. Since it rained and there was wind, I ended up getting all the smoke. I don't smoke and with all of my immediate family not smoking either, I'm not used to that smoke. This reached a high point however when the bus came into view: she put out her cigarette, took her spray deodorant out of her pocket and sprayed it all over herself to cover the smell of the cigarette. I was close to tell her something like, “That will not make it any better. Just stop smoking.” But I was too shy and I said nothing. I'm too polite to the noseless people.

Until next blog,

sarah