The architecture of happiness

my latest read......... about half way through, it's about architecture, it's development and it's affect on us as people.

About what building say to us, what they speak of, what they say about us, how they encapsulate our desires and values and how we identify with some and they make us happy while others grate on us and we hate them.

all very interesting, but havent time to go into it all as i am a lone parent this week and i have children with tougher sporting schedules than Michael Jordan

Holiday hangovers!

am having problems with blogger today..... have just returned from my holidays, it always takes me a while to get my momentum going again once i've had a break for christmas or illness or holidays or whatever.

we all had a really good time, i enjoyed the disney thing although 2 more days of it and i'd have gone mad. It's strange talking to people this morning how everyone has thier down thoughts, was watching the sopranos over the weekend and tony says to ms melfie, "hey, gloom is your business and business is good" i find it strange that everybody has thier pain, i suppose all can appear perfect for a piece of time, you win the lotto, or get great grades, or meet someone new, but it seems to be a fact of life that doubt or pain will inevitably come back and settle in...

I somewhat flippiantly said in my profile that i am happy 51% of the time which is the most anyone can hope for, but today i think that 51% is a bloody good aspiration.

it's very rare that i ever feel 100% happy, maybe fleeting moments looking at sleeping children, or watching a football match or something, where there is no space for any thought other than the happy thought. it's also very rare that i feel 0% totally devestated, therefore i think my life largely vascillates between 49% and 51% and the important thing for me to remember is that no matter how good or bad i feel at any time, i'm only 2% away from the opposite feeling, and that in time that feeling will come to me, or even better maybe there is something i can do about it.

Seligman claims that appreciation is the key to crossing that divide, if you can appreciate the many wonderful things in life rather than focussing on all that's wrong, it will bring about a shift back to the 51% of the equation, so that's the plan for the rest of the day, try to focus on whats well rather than what's broke.

it's good to be back.
it's good that we had a great time
it's good to be working in the business i always wanted to work in
it's good to have this lovely family
it's good to have lots of good friends
it's just good

jaysus i feel better already.......

There's a little bit of pressure on!

I have this thing going on where i am pulled between two forces (a bit like Mr. Burgess) first i want to go out and shake the trees and generate as many ideas and work as possible, on the other hand i am always afraid of taking on too much and then letting people down because of my inability to deliver.

And sometimes i get stuck between both stools and get feck all done either way, and that frustrates the hell out of me too, i have this huge load of presenting coming up, and still have to keep the kettle on the boil around getting new work... and the thing is that two different people have told me today that this feeling will never go away, the feeling of notn quite being sure whether i've done enoguh, planned far enough ahead, covered off all the bases and the paperwork, wondering if in some company somehwere they are saying i did not do exactly what i said on the tin.

and despite all this i still presented for one more big job today, and i have another pitch on monday and 2 on tuesday.... truth is if the four of them say yes then i'm fucked... but then that's a bridge we'll cross as they say.

am addicted to downloading pictures i like on the web, it's so easy on the mac.... i love the mac....the feel of it, the sound of the keys, the way everything is so bloody obvious and simple.,.and i like what it says about me... it's not beige is it.

not waving but drowning

it's always been one of my favourite poems, mainly because i have often had serious identification with it, Stevie Smtih knew what she was talking about here, the whole world thinks you are going fantastic, but you feel overwhelmed and out of your depth. it must be a natural condition, all great literature reflects the true nature of life as a mixture of elation and suffering and still i know so many people who simply can never admit to fraility, to failure, to the possibility that they may be wrong.

Maybe self delusion and deluding everyone else is the way to go, maybe it's always fantastic, maybe every bridge is spannable.... or maybe that type of thinking is what produces wankers like glen hoddle (who famously said that disabled people must have brought it upon themselves in a past life)

I met a woman today who said she was not sending her child on a school bus again, because one crashed yesterday and a child was killed.

perhaps she should never drive again - cos someone died in car crash yesterday too, or never eat meat again, or never go to a festival again, or never wander out the feckin door..... people seem to think they can somehow eliminate risk or luck or chance or fate from thier lives... they seem to think they can control these things.

those people are mad i tell you... mad...mad mad.. these are the people who never fall in love because they may get hurt, who never play the game because they may lose, who never take a chance because they may fail, who never connect with anyone in case they get dissapointed.

thye world needs more chancers, more devils, more people who are willing to explore beyond thier narrow field of experience, because life is about getting too far out, it's about occassionally feeling afraid, it's about trusting madly, it's to do with having a go, taking a chance, giving it a lash, anything else is just death before life... and those gobshites who are always on about a life after death, there the very ones who don't know how to live the one they already have........ looking for some sort of religious insurance policy....anyway... that;s my longest rant for a while... i'll leave you with the text of stevies poem.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

strange times

It's mad and it's busy, have such a lot happening and coming up, in the last few days i have had talks with FAS, Ocean, Enterprise Ireland, Musgraves, Wyeth and Bank of Ireland.

It's really busy, I have the new courses to run, new courses to sell, off to Paris next week and the mad trip to New York a few weeks later.

I certainly won't be sitting around the house moping!

There's just no bloody time!

There is such a lot going on, and there just is not enough time to try and get everything done, all weekend i have been chasing my tail, although some of it was good fun it was still all scheduled and had to be fitted in. I wonder will i ever be someone who can live life without the possibility of spontaniety. The last few days have been stone feckin crazy, between work and marys and the family and FAS and in the middle of it all John McGahern died, he has written the most beautiful books and i would love to re read "that they may face the rising sun" well i hope he does anyway, his books have been a constant in my life for almost 30 years.

i am looking forward to getting back to work for a rest, but there is so much on this week that there is little hope of that, will go for a lovely long walk on the beach this evening and get my head clear.