Posted on November 19, 2008 by Miguel in Wisdom & Life
Hi all, this is to share that I am in an “oposición”. What’s that? Here in Spain and some other European countries, when the Government wants to hire personnel launches a competition. Basically you are given a list of subjects to study and then you have to take a series of tests. The guys with best marks get a secured, 38 hours a week, 1 month + holidays, life long job.
I want to be one of those guys.
Problem is that 12,000 other people want it too (twelve thousand). And they are hiring 44 persons. No typo. This is the student equivalent of a marathon. I’m having the first exam on Dec the 21st -Sunday, I know- and the second probably on Dec the 28th, which is the equivalent of April’s fool. I’m afraid I will have to study even on Christmas Day.
The reason I’m sharing is because, starting today, I will be updating this blog but twice a week, for the five coming weeks of so. I have many people to beat and I don’t want to fail on this one.
So wish me luck, and see you again on Monday. (By the way, there is a great post about forgiveness just below this one).
But in no one face—not even among the women, of whom there were many there—could he [Fagin] read the faintest sympathy with himself, or any feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should be condemned. [...]
He looked up into the gallery again. Some of the people were eating, and some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place was very hot.[...]
At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all towards the door. The jury returned, and passed him close. He could glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone. Perfect stillness ensued—not a rustle—not a breath—Guilty. [...] It was a peal of joy from the populace outside, greeting the news that he would die on Monday.
[...] here was nobody there to speak to him; but, as he passed, the prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and hissed. He shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison.
As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. They rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. He had seen some of them die,—and had joked too, because they died with prayers upon their lips.
[2 days later...]
The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not to be alarmed, looked on without speaking. [...] ‘Take him away to bed!’ cried Fagin. ’Do you hear me, some of you? He has been the—the—somehow the cause of all this.
‘Oliver,’ cried Fagin, beckoning to him. ’Here, here! Let me whisper to you.’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow’s hand.
‘The papers,’ said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, ’are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you.’
‘Yes, yes,’ returned Oliver. ’Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning.’
Thanksgiving day is close for you Americans. I feel a loss that we don’t have such a holiday in Spain, a special evil in a country that has even a San Queremos (Saint We-Want ) Fiesta. I’ve hear in Russian they have a day to ask and give forgiveness. That’s another one we sorely miss. Because unless you live in Perfect Town, Utopia it is likely that you are going to do unethical things.
Yep, that’s hard to accept. We all make mistakes and that’s hard enough to accept. But harder is to accept that we all do evil things from time to time. Maybe not as bad as Fagin; I’m not excusing the criminal by saying that we are all the same. But, just let’s face it, we are not just as perfect as we think we are.
So we all need that neat thing called forgiveness. I’m speaking from the social and individual point of view here, not the religious. (I have a separate blog for that). Yet to ask forgiveness and to grant it, is equally hard to do.
So what about forgiveness?
First of all, it is free. You can’t deserve or buy forgiveness. This is not Calvinism nor Christian doctrine. It is simply the very being of forgiveness. You break it, you fix it, and nobody has a right to demand anything else from you; but neither you can demand that privilege of them.
Second, it is love. The person who forgives has decided not to curse you with her hate nor contempt. It does not guarantee, friendship, though, which takes us to:
Third, it is not reconciliation. If you forgive somebody it does not mean that your relationship has to be restored. Maybe it just cannot. When there is violence, when anger and lies have prevailed for a long time or, simply, when the harm is too severe; reconciliation can be impossible and even not prudent. Let me say it again, you are not guilty of anything if you choose not to restore a relationship; you are not required to take any more chances with your life. Inversely, if you are the guilty party, please do not feel like the only mean of your life is to restore that relationship. Learn and move on. Life is always wider than you think.
Fourth, it does not require that the guilty party asks for forgiveness. (Reconciliation does require it, though). You can choose to forgive, to abandon your anger, hate and fears and move on.
Fagin did not offered even a faint “Sorry” to Oliver. In fact he places the blame of his situation on the poor boy. And yet, this young boy - who has every reason to hate him- shines by offering him a prayer. Naive or not, he wants to save Fagin from hell; what else could Oliver be thinking on? Did Fagin deserve that forgiveness? No way. Yet it is here.
I doubt had Fagin be assigned another sentence Fagin and Oliver could have became friends. Most probably that’s the last thing the boy would have wanted. Except, and even that it is unsure, to become again a guest at the Workhouse run by those great philosophers who considered starving a child the epitome of human education. You see, reconciliation was impossible, in this case. Yet the forgiveness was quite real.
Last, why does Oliver forgive? No idea; that’s the mystery of love. But I wonder that if in that ruffian, the orphan could not see the one he was supposed to become, had he not found the kindness of a turnpike man, an old widow and a despised prostitute, who never saw the fruit of their actions.
Have you been kind today? Maybe you have saved a life or two.
1 Nobody will read your first few posts, if you are lucky.
Consider yourself lucky if nobody read your first few posts. It is quite plausible they are not going to be the best post in your blogging life. You can bet the format will not come out as you thought it, and that image which looked so cool will take like an hour to upload… just in front of your text.
2 Always carry a notebook.
If you blog, if you write, hey, if you do anything creative at all, you just need to carry a notebook at all times. You never know when something sparks a story. It might be a conversation, the action of a stranger, a scribbled note on a wall or just a long forgotten idea that finds no better hour to resurrect than when you are jogging. Don’t lose them again.
3 Keep format simple.
They can read your blog on an Iphone, on some other phone bought in Timisoara, Romania. They can read in a ultra-portable Asus EEE PC running Xandros, or in a 20″ flat screen. They can read it in Opera, Internet Explorer, or Firefox. They can even read it on a RSS. And they can care less about what you think the best software / hardware is.
There is no way you can format your text to appear exactly the same for everybody. However, if you keep it simple most browsers will be able to render it well enough. (And just wait until you change your theme; suddenly what looked so lovely is turned into a monster of squeezed lines and misplaced images.
So be afraid, be very afraid, or be simple.
4 Keep your writing simple
Remember that phone from Timisoara? If you write in English, chances are good that some of your readers would be non native speakers. Some could be immigrants in your own country; others might had never traveled to an English speaking country.
Hint: I learned a lot of my English reading Newsweek.
There is a more powerful reason to write with simplicity. The more complex a sentence is, the easier it is to make a mistake either at writing or reading. And how do people read blogs? Completely focused?
I rest my case.
5 The more you know, the less you have to spend.
If you are adept at CSS and HTML, the more you know about guerilla marketing the less -and more effective - you need to expend to advertise your blog and your products.
6 You don’t need to know CSS and html, but being familiarized with it helps.
No, I’m not speaking about designing a blog or theme from scratch; though it can be done. No, what I’m speaking about is far more common:
The snippet of code.
They look so great! Don’t they? A few lines of computer code designed to add some new feature to our blog -by the way limit those- or an advertisement -you might want those to earn money-. So you copy and paste them and pray that your blog doesn’t explode. It doesn’t, so another day you add one and another one, and yet another…
Then, when things finally go wrong, you have no idea of what to do.
There are some easy ways to prevent that, and I will be speaking about them next Monday in the second and final part of this series, but they all have one thing in common: learn what you are doing; you don’t need to be a master programmer, but at least to understand what could be going wrong and why.
So go, seach for a basic html and css tutorial and learn. The couple of hours invested might save you incontable frustrations.
7 Comments are blood
Comments are the life blood of a blog. They are often the only feedback you get; but not only that, on occasion the comments can become mini-posts on themselves and, some times, even better than the original post. Pat yourself in the back when you get one of those.
Comments -other than spam- have people behind them; people that you are touching, hopefully in a positive way. They need, want and deserve to be valued. Without them your blog is nothing but an electronic leaflet, a pamphlet ready to be discarded and recycled. With them your blogging becomes a community, a small network itself that gradually becomes more important than the words you write.
That’s all for today. See you on Wednesday for the final post of the Oliver Twist series regarding forgiveness.
A real human virus, of the kind that get you to bed, not your computer. I thought I had recovered yesterday but I ended having to return home a little earlier than usual. I’m more or less OK right now, I just feel very weak, lazy and I’m not concentrating that well.
I suppose I could press myself to complete a post I’ve draft, but I don’t want to offer you a half baked article so instead I am recommending you a good one:
Posted on November 12, 2008 by Miguel in english, wisdom
Yesterday my little blog hit 3 months, 83 posts and more than 300 comments. So, how is it growing up? Different from what I thought when I first envisioned it and, frankly, quite better.
Courtesy MGShelton CC -by
You have been instrumental.
Barbara from Blogging without a blog, Sean from WriterDad, Tammy from A day to share, Leo from Zen Habits, Robin from Let’s life forever and a guy called Charles Dickens from his classic blog novel, Oliver Twist, are among many other who have, by their participation, encouragement and advice -both in and off this blog- are making this blog possible.
My initial idea: GTD + Philosophy, both in English and Spanish.
It was a reaction to what I saw in
Many churches and among creative and social conscious people. Too much focus in the art, in achieving excellence, perfection, greatness, holiness, “changing the world” and too few in - borrowing from David Allen again - getting things done.
Many users of productivity methods, who seem a little too focused in getting things done but too few in why, how much and where to find balance in life.
The idea you have helped me to build: Wisdom & Life.
Common Sense Philosophy is what I mean by Wisdom & Life; sharing concepts, pondering about what is good in life, distill it into short posts. I am building on my previous idea, opening the focus a bit; there is much more to productivity than Getting Things Done (which, if you can’t guess it, is my favorite) and wisdom is much more than philosophy or balancing our lives. Even more than defining values and goals of our lives.
It’s probably a bit like Zen Habits, only a bit less practical; or like Writer Dad, just worse written; or like the lost chapters of GTD on how to fill that 50,000 feet (life) goals; or like A day to share a wee less practical; like Let’s life Forever, only a wee less optimistic; like Oliver Twist only a wee better (yeah, sure )… or like Blogging without a blog, but with a blog and a whole different subject
Hi, I am a Christian.
It is not something I want to push or be too over-spoken, but frankly that’s who I am, and what is behind and under much of what I say. Just, so you know.
Last but not least, I refuse to be a ghost priest.
Since I left my religious home as a “wanna-be” priest in a Catholic School. Nothing terribly wrong happened here. I can’t share any lurid story of dark, inquisitorial secrets. (A pity, I could make a fortune). It turned they figured out I was not made to be a priest. It has taken me almost two years to agree.
But I’m afraid I have been acting almost as if I were a priest for these two years. Not any longer. OK, I’m going to say it.
It is OK for me to make money, even to be rich.
Believe it or not, that has taken so long as two years. “Religious” priests have to take a vow of poverty, and even though I have never taken such a vow, my mind setting was quite influenced by that.
What fixed that was Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, [affiliated] a book I “read”. OK, to be honest a summary from PhilosopherNotes. (If you want a free subscription I still have a few available, so just tell). Let me quote it:
“Your programming leads to your thoughts; your thoughts lead to your feelings; your feelings lead to your actions; your actions lead to your results. Therefore, just as is done with a personal computer, by changing your programming, you take the first essential step to changing your results.”
And I was feeling guilty about making money… (still I am, to a point). Not that now I want to be a work slave so I can buy stuff I don’t need. I repeat, money is not going to make me happy, but it will feed some kids, and give me a little stability. It’s all a question of balance, right?
Please do not take that as a critic against the Catholic Church.
Although I am no longer a Catholic -and I’m not going to be more specific than that on this blog- I knew a lot of extraordinary people serving as priests and nuns, doing things than most people will never notice. Maybe because they do what they are expected sure. Surely because they hardly ever complain. If I am not Catholic is for theological and scriptural reasons which do not belong here.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi starts by telling us what doesn’t: money. Once you have enough to live a comfortable life the marginal utility of money decreases. In other words, having five TVs is not going to make you any happier than having four. Mr Csikzentmihlyi, of course, shows evidence for what he says in a form of a very revealing graphic. Despite enormous economic gains, Americans are not happier today than in the fifties.
So he goes on to ponder what makes creative people happy, often doing stuff that aren’t going to give them fame nor fortune. He starts making questions, observing, doing interviews, mixes it all up in his mind, and it seems that all boils down to: Ecstasy.
So what’s ecstasy?
In one phrase: sitting by yourself. When you are in ecstasy you step into an alternative reality, out of the mundane, out of the daily cares, fully focused in what you are doing. Please, don’t think that Mihaly is speaking about some new-age-feel-good stuff or about something reserved for the guru.
Ever been really focused doing something? Ever been fully immersed in a movie, a book or a game. Then you have been in ecstasy.
We love this ecstasy stuff so much we build special structures for it. The temples, the churches, the theaters, they are all spaces for ecstasy: to get out of the ordinary world. And you know what? The things we remember most about ancient civilizations: their “ecstasies”.
How come we forget about ourselves?
Consider that computer you are reading this article with. It has its limitations, it can only process so much information at a time. Our brains are no different. When you are completely focused in doing something, your brain simply has not the capacity to care for anything else.
When that happens, in any creative area, you are “in flow”, you just can’t stop creating.
How does it feel to be “in flow”?
Complete Focus.
Ecstasy.
Great inner clarity. You know what to do and how to do it.
You know it is doable.
Serenity. You don’t worry about the result. You feel you are growing.
Timelessness. You spend hours in what it seems to be minutes.
Intrinsic motivation. You are doing what you love to do.
How to achieve flow.
High Skills.
High Challenges.
In essence you put yourself out of your comfort zone, into something that it is doable. You work on your skills -Mihaly says it can take as much as ten years of instruction and/or experience-, constantly pushing yourself beyond your limits.
Just remember your challenges must still be within the realm of possible. Else you are feeding anxiety into yourself. Make it challenging, not impossible.
Practical considerations.
When I watched this conference, one of the things I thought about was Getting Things Done, when David Allen speaks about “the zone”; or a mind like water. You know, that sort of stuff. Maybe because I’m a GTD fan, but overall it is the best systematic approach I’ve ever seen to personal productivity.
But how come David Allen speaks -using other words- about ecstasy doing your ordinary job? Probably, I guess because he, like many of the people who Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi interviewed:
Loves what he’s doing.
Feels safe enough in his job; he is serene.
Knows how and what to do.
He is focused in what he does.
Do you love your job?
Do you feel safe, serene?
Do you know of any way to make it so? Work on your skills? Get feedback? Please, share.
Posted on November 7, 2008 by Miguel in english, wisdom
Courtesy fromoldbooks.org (PD)
There has never been a day so sunny, do you remember those words? I sure do, they are from Oliver!, the musical, one of my favorites movies from childhood.
Do you remember the set? Oliver wakes up in Mr Brownlow’s home, restored from sickness. Charmed by the love showed in the whiteness, the cleanness, the magnificent power of light, he hurries to the window, and then a cheerful crowd dances before his eyes.
I want to tell you about happiness.
But before let’s go back to Oliver. What a child in a bed suggest? Let me share three ideas: rest, dreams and death. The first two are obvious enough: a child in a bed means rest, if only for the grown ups, and dreams -bad and good- visit us on occasion. But death? Yes, I said death. Not so long ago it was very common for a child to die. In many places it still is.
In fact, in the novel, Oliver is haunted by death from his very birth. Had the boy died at Mr Brownlow’s, at least he would have decently passed away. Not hanged, as it is often suggested in the novel, and not in some damp cell as it would have certainly hapenned but for Mr Brownlow’s intervention.
Did you notice that? Again, kindness saves Oliver’s life, like that old lady and that turnpike man I spoke of a week ago. And again, to provide that kindness the benefactor has to risk something; in Mr Brownlow’s case, his reputation.
As we say in Spain: be like Christ, get crucified. (Actually “Quien se mete a Cristo acaba crucificado” )
But I was going to tell you about happiness.
So why all this speaking about death? Because when Oliver wakes up at Mr Brownlow’s he, to my mind, resurrects. That is the essence of happiness. A change for good, a strong flow of life and energy, a recovered hope in us, the people of the world. When we are happy we love, when we love and the love is shared, we can’t help to be happy.
Hey mom, look at me!
Let’s go back to the musical. Do you remember what happens when Oliver watches through the window? (Link to youtube). The whole world seems to dance before him. Like a king he addresses the crowd, before it proceeds to parade before his majesty.
Do you know why that’s important?
Because Oliver has never said in his life: Hey mom, look at me. Nowadays, there are many houseparents that fill that “hey mom, look at me” role. To be somebody who really cares about someone. Without that, we are nothing, we do not exist, as human beings. We exist because we exist with somebody else.
So we have now the first requirement to be happy: To be recognized as a human being, to valued, to be cared for, to live with someone else.
This wonderful morning…. Such a sky you never did see.
You never did see, sure about that, Oliver? Well, my wise little friend, I see one like it almost every morning. It helps that I live in Canary Islands, but even in England you get a good couple of mornings like that every five years or so. (Na na na na )
Let’s review what Oliver sees through his window: a nice blue sky, street vendors, common workers, some gentlemen, a few apprentice boys, two dozen pupils, a park, nannies, and a band of soldiers. The musical scene seems a bit more Edwardian than Victorian, but aside from that, there is not really anything that grand about it. Or is it? What have has changed?
The way Oliver looks at the world. When you are happy, you can’t help but seeing how wonderful the world is.
So let’s do it in reverse, to be happy : Look at the world lovingly. In other words, be wise.
I know it sounds “new age”, “tree hugger” and all that. Trust me, when they told me about this before I actually experienced it, I got my “yeah, that’s nice” face. Today I find homeless, glue sniffing kids of 13 cute. (And yes I do know what cute means in English). Cute like I can’t help but smile like a granddad as I type these words. Not that I ignore their pain or even their sneaky ways to get stuff, I just go deeper, because I have been fortunate enough to actually know them.
Before knowing them I felt sadness and IRE, anger, rage…
(And no, I did not sniff the stuff myself If something the smell of paint still makes me uneasy. Btw people that glue stuff highs KILLS ).
I’m so high I swear I can fly.
It’s happiness, not drugs, stupid! This is the third and last requirement of happiness; we tend to see joy, holiness, sainthood, goodness and happiness as goals. We say: the pursuit of happiness, or believe there is an Utopia, a state of bliss, a Shangri-La.
News for you: there’s no Shangri-La, and Utopia means “No-where”. (Actually “no place” )
You do your own happiness, yeah, really. You just don’t do it alone, remember the first requirement, living with someone, being someone for somebody else. Somebody else “sparks” your happiness, but then, it is you who should work on it. (If you need me to spark you I’m always an email away: luis DOT miguelde AT gmail.com).
But how, how do you work on your own happiness?
Ah patience, I’m devoting a future next future post(s?) to that.
Just let me ask you something. Can you think of ways to spark happiness in others? How do you make your kids / spouses / guests / other people feel loved?
Meanwhile, be happy ’cause in the words of a 12 years old, it’s like no fun to be sad.
) Fiesta. I’ve hear in Russian they have a day to ask and give forgiveness. That’s another one we sorely miss. Because unless you live in Perfect Town, Utopia it is likely that you are going to do unethical things.
, 
If something the smell of paint still makes me uneasy. Btw people