Category: Musings

Pitching a Novel?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Last night we watched the last episode of “Stranger Things”. The last section was long and painfully drawn out filled with American saccharin and apple pie idealism. It was a bit “pass the sick bag”. We had to wait for the predictable ending for quite a while. It went out with a damp squib. No tenterhooks. Overall “Stranger Things” has been enjoyable, original and different.

Which led me to thinking, “could I do better?”

Anyway I am back to the notion of a novel. The theory being that my USP is that I once was a kosher scientist and I have a fairly deep understanding of the occult. I am no longer a practicing scientist in that I do not earn a living therefrom. There are not many like me.

That brings me back to the whole publishing minefield where many publishers require an agent. There are scam-self publishing houses or one can do Amazon-Kindle self-publishing. There are people who take advantage of the gullible who want to be published.

I know enough about how self-publishing works.

There is a catch 22.

Why write a book if it will be a complete ball ache to get published?

Is it possible to get an in principle interest from either an agent or a publisher before starting a book?

An advance seems impossible.

The big drawback in all this is getting enthusiasm for promotion. I am not sure I could be arsed.

My pitch to venture capital success rate remains very good. But I had to write a business plan for that, even if it did not get read until after the pitch. There was a manuscript of sorts with graphs, projections and shit like that.

I am pretty confident that I can come up with something original. Would it be too highbrow? Maybe. Perhaps there would not be enough intrigue, violence and shagging though. Mobile ‘phone use could be a little too sparse.

I am really not turned on by the idea of being a published author, in the book sense. I don’t want to be the story teller aiming at a world with three waterfalls…I don’t know what motivates others. There is a lot of “advice” on line about how to pitch, how to go ahead. Some of it seems very scam…

A novel would give me something to do. It is statistically unlikely to generate any revenue. The Kindle route is cost free but they hassle you for USA tax documentation. There is a lot of spam. The last dealings I had with prospective agents were unsatisfactory. I have had responses from small niche publishing houses and I did get one or two indications of at least an alleged willingness to read a manuscript. The responses were not rote bulk nor at the time AI bot generated. I still have these emails.

I have previously been interested in testing the limits of possibility…you never know where an idea can go, what it might evolve in to…

Hmnn…

Spiritual or Soular Challenges and Karmic Merit

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I have been mulling over this subject on and off for a number of days now. It is surprisingly difficult to put into words nevertheless I will have a go.

I’ll start this off with a postulate.

In any given lifetime we are presented with challenges which we are required to face in order to evolve. We must endeavour to engage with these with as much willingness as we can muster and try to face them and learn therefrom. They are pivotal to our development as incarnate beings and are a requirement of/for our Souls. They are a part of the lessons we chose to try to learn for ourselves in selecting our birth.

Whether or not you agree with this postulate does not matter especially in the context which it sets up. It frames life no matter if you believe it or like it or think it is poppycock. If the postulate holds it has consequences spanning lifetimes. If you do not accept the postulate and yet it still holds it has consequences. If it is a pile of bull I made up because I was bored and it is raining outside there are fewer consequences. You are “free” to act like an arrogant arsehole should so wish.

Place your bets…

Modern life has boundaries and laws. It has social contracts and is heavily laden with social expectations. There are the itchy back game endless transactions. There are thousands of “shoulds” and “oughts”. These are to an extent culture and peer group specific. Some things are expressed in law and in general it is wise to follow these laws or you could find yourself fined or in gaol. These are “hard” and are relatively non-negotiable. The shoulds are more bendy. The requirement to behave according to a “moral” code is partially enforced by humans and peer groups. These are subject to the vagaries of time. It is no longer socially acceptable to black up for a black and white minstrels show. Morals are flexible and some consider themselves less beholden than others. But you can get cancelled and if you hang out with a famous paedophile in your Y-fronts it can change your future.

Often that which seems too good to be true, is. People like shiny things and fail to appreciate the price attached. The free lunch is a cornerstone of mythos.

The Soular challenges that I am thinking about are not required by law, nor by peer pressure , nor social compliance. Even if you might “get away with it”, by not doing it, these challenges ask that you rise up above that mentality. In listening to your Soul you have no choice but to be utterly impeccable even if that has to it a seeming cost, pecuniary, social or otherwise. The reward is karmic merit gained and a heart enlivened because you have been at your impeccable best.

Doing things when there is no pressure to do them and when nobody else sees them is not something which transactional beings tend to do. There is no apparent immediate reward. There is no “look at me” kudos to be had.

Simply an impeccable and often compassionate act is sufficient in and of itself. It is satisfactory. There is no drum roll, no heralding trumpets. No great big drama.

The acts which gain karmic merit are often to be found in overcoming selfishness, pettiness and greed. They may be invisible to others. But karma has eyes which see more than the profane. These acts are nearly always about “getting over your-self” and they engender a wider humility and understanding of the universal and not the me-personal. Most of all these acts are about attitude. If the attitude in benevolent and not seeking of personal reward, the acts have a nice hue, a rich colouration. There is a subtle perfume to them. They smell nice.

But in order to engage with these challenges one is required to overcome social fear. Often one has to stand out from the crowd in some way. One has to make some kind of an integrity based stand. Which may have a price. In most cases the barrier to doing the act has been bigged-up to gargantuan proportion. Only hindsight concludes, “what was all that fuss about?”  The mind and little-self does its best to dissuade.

Most of these challenges are to do with mind and perception is some way.

Spiritual and Soular challenges can be very subtle indeed. The opportunity is readily missed in the maelstrom of modern living.

There is no, “what is in it for me?”

This mentality of reward and even bribery of a kind is far too prevalent in our times. It does not generate karmic merit.

To do a genuine, as opposed to for show, 180 degree shift away from personal reward is not to the liking of most.

But if you want to evolve you need to change the way you think, the way you act and the way you orient towards life. Otherwise you will stay the same. It is not rocket science.

If you have been lucky enough to have a relatively easy incarnation then chances are it will have a number of subtle yet very important challenges for you to face. You gave yourself the wherewithal so to do…

You can try to run and hide from these challenges but that is not an evolutionary attitude, is it? If you are too important to face your challenges and learn from them what does that say about your attitude to learning and evolution? Maybe you are already so evolved that you are above all that…

Evolution after all is just for the plebs….

Someone Else’s Mind – Stranger Things

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We have recently been watching the fifth series of “Stranger Things”. We have one episode to go. The worlds of Stranger Things and Henry’s mind might seem a bit odd, fanciful and far fetched to many. I joked with the wife this morning that it is pretty tame compared to our dreamworld. The “upside down” outside our fence and garden gate is full of various unpleasantness. Which leaks through via various news broadcasts and on-line newspapers. There is nasty stuff and are nasty people out there. We live in “the right way up”.

If you read and concentrate upon the dreams in the previous post it is likely to do something to your mind. It will perhaps unsettle. To me it is normal, it is slightly more unsettling for the wife. I am more at home with visionary art and spaced out verbal recollections. I can answer University Challenge art questions if the picture is from William Blake or Hieronymus Bosch.

In a sense this blog is a kind of window into what goes on in my mind, my head. It does not however show the “normal” state of my mind. This is largely silent and thought free. It cannot be written down. What occurs here comes only after I have decided to think or verbalize. I live largely in what I term the place before thought.

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I am entirely capable of having the kind of dreams, which might knock others off kilter, and without a second thought I can put the coffee on to brew. I know when I am dreaming and when I am so-called awake. I can also differentiate waking dreams or visions. I can function “normally” whilst having a vision. An example being the ability to teach Chemical Reaction Kinetics whilst a vision was resident and “in play”.

We rarely get detailed glimpses direct into the mind of others. This is partially because our minds are so god-dammed noisy with internal dialogue, worries and a list of devoirs. We live in our “own little worlds” and often try to fit others into the rules pertaining to how that world is assembled and assimilated in our own “minds”.  Our assimilations may differ. Our versions of observable reality may diverge from one another. More often than not we insist on our own assimilation and sense making. What makes sense in our “the right way up” may be to others the “upside down”. We may be adamant that everybody else has gotten the wrong end of the stick. Only our rules of perception and assimilation apply. Only our interpretation is correct.

The mind of another may unsettle us because of its unfamiliarity.

In a sense the dreamworld presented in this blog is other. If it is only a dreamworld it has no significance at all in the normal “real” world. The dreamworld, however it is produced and wherever it comes from, need not impinge on/in your reality out there in the “upside down”.

There are few portals or gateways between our “the right way up” and your world. They exist tangentially. Only occasionally do we go through to go to the hospital or supermarket. We usually make it back without being attacked by a Demogorgon or two.

The only potential problem arises is when the dreamworld here has a significance which is more significant that just dreams, just a dreamworld…

Cunning Ploy Dreaming Snippett – 02-02-2026

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One of the recurring themes in my dreams along with “somebody else’s mess” is the “cunning ploy / plan” theme.

This theme arose in the dream last night concerning two people I once knew.

There is a certain kind of person which cannot resist trying to be cunning and using “clever” tricks to manipulate and seek some kind of advantage or gather some information. They have a play book of tricks and methods and a modus operandi which changes little. There is an expectation that these plays or ploys can be relied upon to secure similar results. They often have some kind of negotiation in mind usually of a transactional nature.

In never occurs to them to be open straightforward and honest. Their ploys can be “relied” upon to secure similar results.

I am pretty bored with the whole cunning ploy theme…Yawn…

If you play a cunning ploy delivery with a straight bat it can cause the ploy to go badly awry. No cunning required on my part just play straight.

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My mother tried to elicit me to cajole her to come to my second wedding. She said that it was difficult and far for her. I replied that if that was the case then I would understand if she did not come.

Many people try to get some emotional manipulation leverage based upon “rules” to which they imagine others will comply. When it goes pear shaped it can be difficult. I can think of a quite a number of cases when other people’s cunning ploys have gone very badly wrong because  I have played straight and not played their game. These ploy attempts have had major consequences.

Some people simply cannot conceive of being simple and straightforward. It is just beyond their ability.  They do not approach with open hands or open hearts; they are after something.

It is just yawn-some.

For a while I was in “pastoral care” and many students tried to take advantage of the system / me. Unfortunately for them I was in the habit of taking notes and had a good memory. I was prone to repeat their prior narratives to them. Quite a number of schemes failed and the only people who knew were me and them. Confidentiality was important.

Quite why the “cunning ploy” theme is resurfacing again I do not know, but it has been noted by me…

 Yawn…

Do I Have an Attitude Problem, Am I Too Irreverent?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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41. Bodhidharma Pacifies the Mind

Bodhidharma sits facing the wall. His future successor stands in the snow and presents his severed arm to Bodhidharma.

He cries: “My mind is not pacified. Master, pacify my mind.”

Bodhidharma says: “If you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you.”

The successor says: “When I search my mind I cannot hold it.”

Bodhidharma says: “Then your mind is pacified already.”

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Mumon’s comment: That broken-toothed old Hindu, Bodhidharma, came thousands of miles over the sea from India to China as if he had something wonderful. He is like raising waves without wind. After he remained years in China he had only one disciple and that one lost his arm and was deformed. Alas, ever since he has had brainless disciples.

Why did Bodhidharma come to China?
For years monks have discussed this.
All the troubles that have followed since
Came from that teacher and disciple.

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Excerpted from“The Gateless Gate”,

by Ekai, called Mu-mon, tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps [1934], at sacred-texts.com

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I suspect that many people are uncomfortable with clarity.  My own experimental evidence suggests that providing clarity can be unpopular and politically unwise. People are fond of brown nosing and otherwise sucking up to those with kudos related positional power. If one is not sufficiently reverent one can become a “problem”. Upsetting the applecart etc. can go down like a lead balloon on a planet with very high mass and low diameter.

If for example you think I have an attitude problem, where does that stem from? Is that from my behaviour or some preconceived idea you may have about how people are and should behave according to the gospel of you? If you say that I have an attitude problem are you in effect simply criticising your own reflection in a mirror?

Who defines which attitude is correct and/or appropriate?

Who is the expert and/or authority on this subject?

It is a part of my nature to take the piss. This can seem irreverent particularly to those who are pompous and very self-important.

I am reasonably confident that some people think that I am not sufficiently reverential and therefore I have an attitude problem. I don’t have a problem with my attitude but others might…

I had this sudden intuition this afternoon that people think I have a bad attitude…there is nothing I can do about what others think….

Am I a Figment of My Own Imagination?

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Over the last few days, on and off, I have had a sensation of something going on. That has a kind of French connection. It pertains to some people I have never met. Being objective I am very unlikely to ever meet them. We do not move in the same circles, nor are we likely to. I could be imagining it, or it could be real. I have no way of knowing for sure.

I do have a fairly good imagination. {My self-assessment}

A while back an ex-tutee of mine got back in touch with me. He told me that he had great difficulty finding me on-line. That I was difficult to trace. He was of a younger more tech savvy generation. In the end he used an email address which he had not used for a long time. The problem is that my name is common and that there are a lot of people with that name who are more readily found in search engines, they are more “famous” than me. Without additional key words I cannot be readily found in search engines.

In academia one is encouraged to have a profile with contact details. People do not just disappear without trace. I just tried my old email address and it does not work. No surprise. People may not imagine one sailing off the edge of the world. They may imagine you to be always contactable.

If I have no current named online presence do I exist? If there is no social media am I real or imaginary? If I am not on WankedIn can I be a professional?

There is no witness outside of this house/compound who can vouch for any claimed past history. I could have been spinning people a line…

Many of the people I was contemporary with are seemingly retired. They are dying out. I could have read the research papers of some arbitrary person and kidded myself that I wrote them. There is no proof, no witness, no referee. I have not left much of a tangible mark.

If we clean out our emails we may lose contact with people. This may at the time be intentional but that may be the only slim thread of contact. We may find a need to contact someone and they have disappeared into the aether. What we do in a pique, we may later regret.

People do not imagine others going “missing” or off the reservation.

I am pretty clear as to what my day to day reality is. A man has just delivered 885 kg of propane.

There is a whole other side which could only be imaginary or dream like. That side makes up ~ half a million words in a blog. If it is out of my brain, out of my mind, is it real? There is no physical manifestation other than in a blog. I am not passing it on in another way. It is a figment, temporary and impermanent in nature. Many texts online reference impermanent sources. There are many missing links. This too is impermanent.

There is a photo here taken a couple of days ago. It is possibly the only photo of me on the internet. That is unless you can trawl way back archived posts.

I could be lying. I could have taken someone else’s photo and be a catfish.

Many of us tell ourselves stories about who and what we are, what we stand for and are like. Many of those stories differ from those others hold and tell about us. Our personal narrative or legend differs from those more widely held.

We are all therefore figments of our own imagination.

There is a vague feeling of waiting for something. There are two important decisions upcoming which are not ours alone to make. These are whether or not my right to stay in France is approved and whether or not the new surgeon sees it fit and/or timely to operate and give me another new artificial hip.

These will define the year in a much more tangible way than anything I rabbit on about here. They are not figments they have real measurable physical plane outcomes.

O still small voice of calm

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Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,
O still small voice of calm!

John Greenleaf Whittier

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Over the last few days I have been on an off back with Narziß und Goldmund. A duality of aspects of me. I have according to my dreams been more often Narziß.

The journey into searching for me really began with St Francis and his famous prayer.

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Là où sont les ténèbres, que je mette la lumière.

Là où est la tristesse, que je mette la joie.

Ô Seigneur, que je ne cherche pas tant à être consolé qu’à consoler, à être compris qu’à comprendre, à être aimé qu’à aimer.

—

In which he expresses his heartfelt bodhisattva vows.

I have yet to find a more erudite expression for contact with one’s soul than “o still small voice of calm.”

Which reminds us that no matter what is transpiring there is something which persists and remains unsullied by all that drama. It is an injunction to detach and not to be such a drama queen caught and enthralled in the maelstrom of emotions. The words exhort one to achieve balance and perspective. It suggests being the calm in the storm. It hints that ambitious striving is not the be all and end all.

We could all of us do with a little more near silent reconnection with our essence. For so often the quiet whispering wisdom of our soul, our inner being, is drowned out in the hectic cacophony of modern existence. Our list of seemingly oh so important devoirs inundates us and our FOMO steers us like a tiny boat in a raging tempest.

We have often lost touch with our soul, our anchor.

Our inner candle which burns softly and which silently radiates can be missed in the loud relentless fake CGI of modern ways. It is not flashy and relentless. It not unnerving and unsettling. It is always there should we seek it.

We should all endeavour to be more attentive to the vital utterances of our still small voices of calm.