I used to be afraid of failure (*), but once you believe (*), and you’re not scared (*) of the outcome, things become clearer (*), and opportunities (*) arise.
via Rogers makes it two for Tinkoff (*) by Matthew Beaudin (*).
Congrats Mick. An amazing stage win. Thanks for sharing so much of your victory and what you have learnt about yourself this year. I started my journey (*) on learning many of the same lessons (*) on the very roads (*) you cycled last night.
All these are about light and colour. The Autumn light seems clearer and offers a bit more contrast. It is really noticeable now and I think the last few photos show it.
Hands Clean - Alanis Morissette (*) / Live from Abbey Road Live (*) [Youtube (*)]
At the end of the first song Hands Clean (*), Alanis gives this amazing calm and lucid insight into fame and her life purpose. Here it is:
[On] Fame. At this point I would say that it is a planetary value - wealth, fame, power at the cost of everything else.
So I think that value being shared around the planet creates in people this thought that if I am famous, I will be happy.
And what I have come to see is that fame only amplified that which was there already.
So if I was depressed or I if I was insecure or if I was angry or whatever it was it just amplified it.
It made everything bigger and it did not sort of give, give me what it had been sort of purported to be able to give.
And so there was this great disillusionment.
[On Life Purpose] At this point in my life I am clearer that I share music because it is part of my life purpose.
To write it is, the act of writing it is for me and the act of sharing it is so that other people can make it their own - they can derive comfort, inspiration or whatever they want to derive from it.
So it becomes an offering of some kind and because of that I can do it and I can work really hard.
If I were singularly doing it to just be in the public eye for gratuitous reasons, than I would probably last about an hour.
This was recorded sometime in 2008, I am guessing. I saw it late one night on the ABC in February 2009 (*).
It was a rather random viewing and because I knew of Alanis' music, I decided to record her segment of the show on my PVR.
Over the ensuing months I would watch it repeatedly, often in the middle of the night, when Jenny had fallen into a deep sleep. I was mesmerised by Alanis' voice, the musicians that supported her and the live performance. In some ways this video takes me back to those last few months with Jenny and the sense of innocence (*) we all had with what we were about to confront (*).
Alanis' words, reflects the the depth of her experience and her delivery touched me back in 2009, and they touch me even more now because of the memories they evoke three years on, as well as her insights into life purpose, something that I have had to grapple with when you feel you have fulfilled your purpose in life.
This recording takes me back to those nights before Jenny's passing where I would watch this video safe in the comfort that she was in the next room, breathing and still with us.
Tonight, I have captured this part of my life here - I tried to add it to my blog back in early 2010, but it was too hard back then. For some reason it seems right to add it now, though I have not been able to fully explain here why. I just think it is amazing.
I personally feel that spending one’s life in search of fame and recognition is a waste of time. Rather, I feel the most important thing is to create work that is relevant and meaningful to you. After all, fame (*) and recognition is dependent on the opinion of others – something you can’t control.
via 10 Lessons Andre Kertesz Has Taught Me About Street Photography (*) by Eric Kim (*).
Whenever someone mentions the word Fame (*), I now think of Alanis Morissette and her own experiences (*) with Fame (*):
And what I have come to see is that fame (*) only amplified that which was there already.
So if I was depressed or I if I was insecure or if I was angry or whatever it was it just amplified it.
It made everything bigger and it did not sort of give, give me what it had been sort of purported to be able to give.
And so there was this great disillusionment.
She then discussed her own way forward:
At this point in my life I am clearer that I share music because it is part of my life purpose.
To write it is, the act of writing it is for me and the act of sharing it is so that other people can make it their own - they can derive comfort, inspiration or whatever they want to derive from it.
So it becomes an offering of some kind and because of that I can do it and I can work really hard.
If I were singularly doing it to just be in the public eye for gratuitous reasons, than I would probably last about an hour.
For me, my main aim in life is not to be noticed too much. I am happy to be just engaged with the world (*) and contributing in my own little way, whatever that might be.
[..] So what is it to be engaged fully in that one stroke?
After the fact it is difficult to isolate the experience of one stroke from the others. It is challenging to gain clarity on exactly one stroke because it happens in a flow of many more. [..] the dilemma is not just identifying the one, but ensuring it is pure and uncontaminated by the past one’s and future one’s.
The joy of performing the one stroke and immersing in it is challenged by the accumulated nature of the cyclic or repeated experiences. [..]
[W]hat is it to be fully engaged in one stroke[?] Knife-edge comes to mind. [..] the sense of being on a knife-edge is a great description. Less so from the perspective of balance or even match up, it has an essence that finds a cord within that is about effort, ease, maintenance and fatigue.
In fact to see it clearer I notice that the one, perfect one that I see is one of edgy contrast.
It is in a position of precarious, pointedness with a subtle oscillation between more than one element and more then one stroke including the past, present and future.
One stroke is so hard to describe, I know it when I feel it and some times I know it when I see it. Maybe the one is not perfect but we make it so because we like the idea of it being better than it really was.
The experience of rowing fascinates me because it has so many things it relates too. What I do know is that when I am engaged things change. The world looks and feels different and it gives me hope. Giving in to it, but not letting it get the better of you is critical. That may sound strange but there is something about being part of the boat, the movement, the other person, and the surroundings that makes so much sense of everything. [..]
Accessing the moment is not just about rowing, but I find it palatable to articular the action of rowing in a way that means something. One stroke at a time is a cliché and like one shot at a time it has meaning if you connect with it in some way. [..]
One stroke then is like every other stroke and they in turn they are like the days of life we live. It is just an experience how I choose to judge it or them is my choice. Years ago I watch a video the Searle Brothers made about their 1992 Olympic Games success in the coxed pair. In the video Greg spoke of a simple activity they did which involved calling out better or worse as a measure for each stroke they rowed. The idea I guess was to have more, better strokes and as such you develop accountability and improvement.
One stroke means different things and the reasons are varied. What enables full engagement in one stroke or in the moment is also varied. [..] One stroke unfolds and expands. Its meaning is huge and the vastness of experience is inspiring. Being at one in one is the art to rowing I suppose which really isn’t anything new, but repeated. So you see, like me, a cliché can mean so much which it does. [..]
Another Favourite Blog Post from Drew Ginn. A truly amazing description of rowing[/paddling] and as is usual with Drew's writings I can relate to in many ways.
I always find the strokes from the start to transition are the easiest to remember. Darren calls them the "glory strokes" and in many ways they set the boat up for the rest of the effort. Get it right and you are on the way. Get it wrong and you are on the back foot trying to recover. Can also remember some lift calls in various efforts over the years.
Love the description of 'Knife-Edge' and 'Edgy Contrast'. I often feel that when the effort is such that things seem to be edgy, that is where we need to be. Always wary of that that perfect feeling.
Grief is concentrated in the face. It makes the flesh sodden and unresponsive, dull with blood, like when you are drunk and heat comes off the skin like vapour off water, as if your vitality is evaporating into the air. The muscles go dead around the mouth and eyes. It almost hurts when others smile and your own face remains inert, held down by the drag and weight of the blood. The memory of grief stays in the flesh. The body recalls it, feels its weight, moulds itself automatically to its shape as the loss is remembered, the mask becoming tighter as the memory becomes clearer; not the memory of the dead person, but the memory of grief itself.
Geoff - "an early start for the first day of the rest of my life - 'where do you start?'" - Alexandria - 7am Wed 01 Jul 2009 (picasa)
Took this photo of myself the first morning after Jenny had died. I slept OK, all things considered and was up early - I had no idea what the day would bring. All I knew there was a Funeral to organise and many people to be contacted. No stranger to all of this, so I headed up to my usual Coffee shop (Cafe Sofia) so that I could have a few quiet moments to myself before the onslaught of the day.
Not sure why I took the photo - maybe so that I could remember that moment of numbness, despair and initial grief. I did a similar thing when my younger brother Tim died (see here).
The words above by Jonathan Walker (he reviewed one of my photos that I took in Newtown - see here) seem to match up with what I now see of myself in the photo.
The following gives some context to his writings on Grief - The Art of Grief - and its relationship to his new Novel - Five Wounds. It is complicated, but Grief is a long drawn out and complicated process. I am still trying to work it all out myself.
Five Wounds is a parable as well as a fairy tale. Throughout, it refers to an invisible, suppressed source: ‘The Art of Grief’, an abandoned essay on the deaths of my parents. This essay is never acknowledged directly within the novel, but it will be made available in March or April 2010 as a free download on my website for those who wish to investigate.
[..]
‘The Art of Grief’ is a key, which unlocks hidden meanings in Five Wounds. However, the relationship between the two texts is more complex than that of a riddle to its solution or a joke to its punch line, because Five Wounds has an independent life of its own. Its characters act according to their own natures, and make their own choices. They are not mere ciphers, condemned to act out episodes of my biography in a disguised, pathological form. The characters may be fantastic, but they are real within their own world, even when they unknowingly refer to events beyond its borders.
In this case, then, one text does not solve the other. Rather, Five Wounds places stolen fragments of ‘The Art of Grief’ in a new setting, which transforms their meaning, as the Venetians studded the façade of the church of San Marco with pieces of marble looted from Constantinople. Here, however, the arrangement is reversed. It is not the loot that shines brightly, but the container, within which the quotations are safely hidden away, like bones in a reliquary.
