Posts Tagged ‘TV’

How Dreams Can Demonstrate What Goes On Inside

Jun 22nd, 10 / 0 Comments

When I woke up this morning, it was one of those rare occasions when I actually remembered the body of what I had been dreaming about.

I know that some people like to analyse dreams and delve into the content, whereas I imagine my mind being a huge store room of filling cabinets. When I rest, little mini me’s run around like headless chickens filing away all the things I had pulled out earlier and finding homes for all the new learnings and experiences generated during that day. The only way the mini me’s can know where to file things, is to read them to get an idea of the best place to put them. I believe that It is these ‘snippets’ of information, that form our dreams.

Last night saw the release of Apples ios4 – the latest software for the iPhone and iPod touch – and this in turn required an update to the latest version of iTunes. Our internet was taking a severe bashing as we are a household of mac users, and we do love our technology. We had several computers all hitting Apple’s servers, greedily demanding the latest version of their software and as time went on, the download speed was getting slower and slower. Eventually, in the small hours of the morning, everything in the House of Herberts – an unfortunate phrase but it makes me laugh – was up and running again with the coolest gadgets to leave Cupertino [ The Home of the Mac ] . Relieved and ready for bed, I retired for the night.

This brings me nicely back to that dream I talked about earlier. Hopefully, at least some of you will have seen that great film Zulu, with Michael Caine. Now I hasten to add that this film was made back in 1964, I while before i sprang to life, but never the less I have enjoyed watching it on several occasions. The key point about this is the stand that Michael made with his few remaining soldiers at the end of the film, against the Zulu Warriors. They were clearly out numbered but reluctantly stood their ground until the bitter end.

In my dream, I could see Michael Caine in his bright red uniform, walking up and down a line of troops instructing them on how they were to stand guard over the information being given out from those massive servers at Apple. “Give them just enough to keep them happy lads” Is what I was hearing. It seemed really major and very vivid. When I woke up, I remember thinking that was probably a tough night for them.

The thing about all this, is how when we don’t have much else to occupy our minds, we allow other ‘stuff’ to amplify and fill all that unused space in our heads. You know how sometimes we wake in the early hours, thinking about something that appears to be a big issue to us at the time, and yet in the morning, it’s much less of a concern. We have filled our minds with many different things by this stage, so each of them can only occupy an appropriate amount of space, putting things back into perspective for us.

A similar thing happens when we dwell on problems. If we focus on the negative aspect of a problem, omitting anything useful from our thought process, there is room for anxiety about that problem to grow, until eventually the problem can seem overwhelming.

It is always sensible to keep sight of the good things that we have in life, and give those just as much, if not more attention than things that bother us.

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Living & Learning, Technology

The State Of English Football

Jun 19th, 10 / 1 Comment

Now, those of you who already know me, have the advantage of understanding my take on Sport. For those of you who are getting to know me, I am not a follower of Sports but i do strongly believe in a sporting chance.

I have not seen any of the recent games played in the World Cup, over in beautiful South Africa, but it is nigh on impossible not to catch sight of the so called highlights replayed over and over at every opportunity on the news stations and any TV and Radio show that carries any sort of discussion, so I am up to speed as it were on the England teams current plight. The source of most of my updates, however, has been the online ramblings in blogs, tweets and posts by my circle of learned friends and colleagues who are aficionados in the field of football.

I titled this post today – The state Of English Football – as I am mostly interested in the state that people get themselves into when they subject themselves to the torture of watching a game that has such a saddening outcome. Now obviously my view is somewhat removed from that of e keen follower, but it will certainly make more sense on a logical level. As I have flicked back through these posts and tweets i mentioned, that were made during the game and afterwards, it is clear that a state was building within these commenting spectators. They were becoming more anxious and even more enraged by the skills offered by the players, and the once articulate writers had resorted to posting harsh one liners. By the end of the game, they had beaten themselves up sufficiently over the result, that they needed to vent their feelings initially with their keyboards, and then with alcohol and commiserating hugs from their fellow sufferers.

Why oh why do we do that to ourselves. Yes, I will admit that having a certain level of pain in your life will make you appreciate pleasure even more than you already do, but is it really necessary with todays technology to go through this anxiety. Surely the best solution with the aid of todays technology is to wait and hear the result. Do something more productive with your time whilst the game is live. You can get so much more done as the rest of the unfortunate souls are glued to their TV sets. Tesco’s was lovely and clear and I can not recall the last time shopping on a Friday night was so good. Then when you have the result, you can choose to watch the game or just those so called ‘highlights’. At least you won’t be disappointed and drag yourself painfully through every moment of play where you think you could do better.

I was taught some time ago now, that it is no good practice to rely on the actions of others to generate your own feelings, values or emotions. Yes it is good to support your country and to want to win when there is so much gloom around, but is it sensible to let the actions of 11 men affect the mood of an entire nation.

Perhaps if we thought how good the Algerians are probably feeling right now, we could feed off of their energy and give ourselves a little boost.Personally I think that 22 guys fighting over a single ball is daft anyway. If we sent them 21 more balls, wouldn’t that remove any squabbling?

I am still coming to terms with the fact that I have written about football here today. But then again, it’s not about the football to me, it’s about how ‘fans’ get themselves in such a state over something that is out of their control. If a sport does not give you pleasure, why bother with it?

Fill your life with things you really enjoy and experiences that you will love to share with others. It will make you feel much better about yourself.

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Living & Learning