Tag: life

Marcus Aurelius Quotes

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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

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If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

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You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

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When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

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How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

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The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

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You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

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Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

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What we do now echoes in eternity.

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Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.

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Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

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Random – Buffalo Shaman – P&L Dream 28-10-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had between 4 and 7:30. I am going to open a new dream theme “random” and apply it to dreams which seemingly have little to do with me although I may feature therein.

My anticipation is that the dreaming will fade going towards surgery. It will then lay relatively dormant. This anticipation could be wrong.

The dream opens in a large room, part of a town hall and near a registry office. Sat around the room on large “leather” bound sofas are a collection of jet black men. They are all very smartly if non-standardly dressed. They look a little like characters out of a 1930s movie by their vintage clothing choice. There is some jollity and mirth. They are all Nigerian and gathered for a Nigerian wedding. They are big blokes and I think that they would make a good pack of rugby forwards.

I am to marry an Irish woman Aishleen to one of them. She is in the next room waiting in a white wedding dress.

I look down to the inside of my right wrist. There is  a white, made of bone, emblem there. It is a skull of a buffalo with bead decorations on the horns. The emblem is mostly two dimensional and is attached to me, tattoo like as opposed to affixed. One of the Nigerians says that I am the Buffalo shaman and that I must practice the rite. I gather the men together holding hands in a circle. We sing and chant a little.

They notice in one corner of the room a brilliant white laboratory style mouse. I must sacrifice it. To do this I take a book from the bookshelf and use it to squash the mouse. They cheer me on to do this. I squash the mouse and it flattens then disappears. It is OK now for the marriage to go ahead.

The scene changes and I am walking around South London near a park. The road is on top of a slope behind some metal railings and the park is in the valley below. It is in Streatham. I follow the road and go into a club house of sorts there is a meeting. The local “council” are discussing closing public toilets as a cost saver. I say that this is stupid as the cost saving is tiny. The lead for the meeting says that the finances are dire. I asks him to show me. He comes back with a summary statement. I say that no, I want the entire profit and loss, P&L accounts to peruse. Give me all the detail. That is the best thing I can do for them to do a thorough look as an objective outsider. I say that I think they are losing the plot.

He comes back with a full accounts setting and a younger woman clerk. She is dark haired, ample and around 40. I recognise her. He says that she will help me. She asks me if I remember where I met her all those years ago. She says that it was a 4 AM in the morning walking along Turners Road when I was accustomed to doing my late night walks. She says that we went back to hers for some more drinks. For some reason non sexual we are close.

As I wake up I think “random”…

The dream ends.

Gorillas – Plane Concept – Davos –  Cairo – Freedom Dream 05-10-2025

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Here is last night’s dream sequence mostly had before 5:15 AM. I almost did not want to go back to sleep in case there was more incoming to remember.

The dream starts with me crossing a wooden style over a fence into a green meadow come fallow field. The field slopes gently up to the left and gives way into a wooded copse. I have no shirt on my top. I start to run along the length of the field. I can feel the impact in my pelvis but cannot see my legs. I am unaware if I am clothed or not below the waist. I have not run for a very long time and am unaccustomed. I am enjoying it. The sun is out. The air is crisp. I am moving fairly well. I get to the style at the other end of the field about 400 metres away. I stop and turn back.

I start to run back. To my surprise both my legs seem to be working well. As I get near the corner of the field with the style I can see two groups of gorillas. Nearest me are three adolescent juveniles who are playing with each other. Nearer the style there is a huge silverback, his mate and two infant gorillas. I note that there are seven gorillas in total. I wonder if I will disturb them and cause the silverback to attack. As I get closer I decide not to try for the style but to head up the hill. I look to my chest and joke to myself that perhaps they will think me one of them. I start to head on a different trajectory uphill and without staring directly at the silverback. From time to time we catch eyes. He is content and chilled chewing on a piece of grass.

As I head up the hill I notice some human houses with fences to the field. I can see in the wooden slat fence a gate with a padlock able bolt lock in grey metal. I slow down and slide the bolt back which opens the wooden gate onto a path / unmade road. I step through onto the path and close the gate behind me. I am met by a middle aged Germanic house frau with blonde hair fixed in pleated curls to her head. She gestures me to follow her into her house and thence into a garage come hangar. I now have  a white long sleeve shirt on. I know that I am in an alpine village and that the elevation is around 1500m or more. I can tell this from the flowers in the meadow. She is very insistent on showing me into the hangar.

On the concrete there is a large model wooden plane with a brilliant red paint job {think red arrows}. It has a wingspan of over one metre. The propellor on the front is damaged. She asks me to fix it. I look up the model number on a lap top and download a technical drawing of the spare parts. I order these. The parts cannot be delivered on time. We agree that there needs to be a faux or ersatz propellor for the show. She calls a relative, a male, who fashions a propeller out of hide leather. This will be good enough for the first show. However the village is buzzing because an offshoot for the Davos World Economic Forum is due to visit the village. It will be good for the local economy ongoing.

She says that I should fit my own novel prototype propellers in time for this visit. I have developed a new kind of prop-drive unit which they would like to see. I agree and start fashioning the propeller design out of some metal lying to one side of the workshop / hangar. I check that the design will fit and can be driven by the onboard motor of the model plane. This will be ready for the Davos offshoot and they are particularly interested to see what it is that I, specifically, have designed.

The scene changes and it is just after dusk. The air is warm and scented and I am in the back seat of a taxi come limousine. I am arriving at the drop off “roundabout” in front of the Hilton Intercontinental in Cairo. I am a specially invited speaker at some kind of conference there. The driver gets out and opens the door for me. I go in and head to reception.

The scene now changes to some kind of communal market / fête. People are milling about it is in a town centre. Some kind of market town like Marlborough. I have been interviewing people with a microphone and a small production crew. I have been giving them the verbal prompt “freedom” and asking them to make a short response as to what springs first to mind. We have edited the first batch of clips and are projecting them onto what looks like a cricket white side sight screen. There is sound.

The first clip is of me saying “freedom”. The people / audience pause and watch.

The subsequent clips are of people responding to camera and microphone.

“Freedom from war.”

“Freedom from oppression.”

“Freedom from hate.”

“Freedom to love.”

“Freedom to think.”

“Freedom to breathe.”

“Freedom simply to be.”

Once the clips have been shown the people carry on about their business.

I am with three generations of a family they are a Somali / Eritrean grandmother skinny in a headscarf, she has that distinctive look, her anglicised more corpulent daughter dressed smartly and Western and a young girl. The daughter ushers me into the back of a limousine / van where we will edit more of the responses. I initially sit in the front left hand passenger seat. I cannot easily help the edit. It tanks it down with rain. I get out of the car into a deep puddle wetting my legs near up to the knee. This causes hilarity particularly for the young girl. I climb into the back and am handed the lap top. We are very happy that we have gotten enough “freedom” clips for now.

I awake for a loo break. I am in two minds whether or not to get up because if there are more dreams I may not be able to remember and recollect them all. That is already a lot to recall.

I drift back off and am in some kind of a social club / bar. I am in the entrance vestibule taking off my jacket when deeper in the bar I see Anita. She sees me and come running over to give me a hug. She is small. She says that she is very glad to see me because she wanted to tell me that she is leaving for Geneva. She has a job there. I say that this is fantastic. I have a series of commitments starting first in Fribourg and working my way south towards Geneva. Ending with a gig there. I have an “appointment” or job at a school near Geneva if I want one.

The dreaming gets more bitty but has me returning later to the bar to pick up my keys and things. I am completely naked and vulnerable but the barman has kept my things to one side and is very happy to return them to me.

The dream ends and I am determined not to go back to sleep.

Is Being Negative Clever?

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This topic was raised in a dream last night.

Some imagine that being highly sceptical and picking holes in everything is the hallmark of intellect and perhaps cleverness. Please understand that when I use the word clever I do not do so in a positive sense. Clever for me is a derogatory term implying an arrogant perhaps smug self-satisfaction, a know-it-all misplaced glee. It is very easy to pick holes, much harder to mend them. I’ll suggest that it is a flaw of human sociopolitical mindset to be negative. To always find fault and thereby prove just how bad and terrible things are. It is a prejudice. A crowd, perhaps baying, will get behind a negative sentiment easily.

Back when I used to do personal and team development courses my favourite piece of personal feedback was, “Alan’s ability to constantly find positives in every situation was tiresome and irritating!” This was from young Ph.D. students at a Complexity doctoral training centre in UCL. Young people full of negativity are hard to motivate. Can’t is a self fulfilling prophecy. Eeyore is alive and tolerably well, not too bad, getting by, moping.

One of the things which has surprised me about France is just how negative people collectively are. They are inert, they complain and find fault. They are actually more negative than cynical Brits. They have shit loads of great technology which nobody outside of France buys. This is because they seem too shy and embarrassed, perhaps arrogant and lazy, to meanigfully address non Francophone markets. There is a cloud of negativity and little encouragement. The medical profession here lacks warmth and is process driven. It is very good but mostly soul less. Few understand my post hip operation career at the Bolshoi. Graveyard humour is lacking and as a result things can be dour and sullen.

In the dream last night I was talking with a British GP doctor. She was posh upper class and old school, roughly my age. She was tweedy and clearly had an intimate relationship with gin and tonic. You could imagine her on a pheasant shoot equipped with cognac filled hip flask. She was looking at all my extensive medical tests. On the basis of these she wanted to know why I had come to see her. I explained that I was concerned about getting a post cold chest infection. She said that I should not be such an idiot. All my tests showed that aside from my arthritis I am in a very good state of health for my age and considering my past consumption. She said that we was considering telling me to fuck off out of her office. I do not have COPD and my ticker works just find. I said that the constant pain puts a down lens on things. She said that in a half a year or so things would look more rosy. Cheer up!

It kind of highlights how the medical profession may send one off to be a lab rat and then forget to give you perspective. If you have 70 medical appointments in a year you will assume yourself to be severely ill, when you may not be. It shows how the big grey heavy mental cloud of negativity can drag you down suck out your spirit like a Potteresque dementor.  On Monday I stood in the “happy” queue at the pharmacy in the local village. Shiny happy people it was not.

“Sitting here eating my heart out baby, I need some hot stuff baby…” It was a shame that the radio was not on…

The world right now lacks direction, positive direction. It is a heavy and very negative space. Hope is a very rare thing just now. Division and negativity are the prevalent toxins.

Being overly negative is a very big downer…man…

So what is the Plan?

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No specific dreams overnight. I have started painting the end of the room near the log burner. The winter wood situation is now ready and good to go until February. There are a few items left on the checklist.

It seems to me that as I enter my 62nd  year tonight around midnight there is not a lot of change foreseen.

There are a number of medical things upcoming. The wife may / may not stop the lenalidomide maintenance therapy for her multiple myeloma and will soon get back the post breast cancer genetic screening tests. The treatment of myeloma is evolving and the epidemiology complicated by diverse treatment protocols and disease presentation. It seems that the better the initial depth of success with first line treatment the greater the disease free longevity. Studies on stopping lenalidomide maintenance are sparse and of low number participation. Drawing reliable conclusions is tricky. In France they tend to stick to agreed {collective} protocols so we will soon find out if that has changed since the last visit to the haematologist.

It seems to me that a fair proportion of the tests that I have undergone will be let slip “laisser-tomber”. I have a repeat prostate specific antigen test upcoming. Any increase in  number will trigger another MRI and possible biopsy. I need a dental infection all clear before the scheduled hip operation. In the pipeline is a cardio ECG stress test. Assuming all is OK I should sliced and drilled in autumn with round two pencilled in for spring next year. After that I will complete my job application at the Bolshoi. I may start treatment for osteoporosis. The French budget deficit is big maybe they need to spend less on some aspects of healthcare. I will have to do physiotherapy.

We could get a nationalist anti-immigration government which will cast a cloud over our right to stay in Brittany. We could be booted out if they raise the financial threshold for residency.

Being positive we might hope for no recurrence of myeloma symptoms and some enhanced mobility for me for summer ’26. We do need to downsize house. The window of opportunity is before the second hip operation or after it. We have a short visit to blighty booked during which we wish to find out how the UK now feels. From the news here and on UK TV it looks to have gone somewhat down the shitter since we left. We need to see for ourselves. The expectation is that it will be cramped and expensive. The wife managed to grow cavolo nero so we sourced one of the things we missed.  At £4 a coffee for an Americano it could be painful.

Irrespective of the dream content which tends towards the highfalutin, life here will probably carry on much as normal. The lack of mobility will increase over the next few months. The circles I move in are very unlikely to change. I will not be at the fromagerie meeting with big cheeses any time soon. Some people my age are still pursuing high-octane careers and being all stressed out and busy. I have been “retired” for five years and am miles from the greasy pole hamster wheel. It was another world.

Unless anyone is reading the blog in a surreptitious manner, what I type here is read by only a small handful of individuals. If people are snooping and want to get in contact, how might they broach the subject? People do not often think things through.

Of late we have watched a number of Netflix series and in all of these smartphones and social media play a significant part in the plot, the so-called story line. It is another alien world to me. Weird to see text messages as part of a film plot!! We look at a ‘phone on a bigger screen. Seems a bit desperate. And they say Fentanyl is bad.

I guess I have reached the part of life when I have turned into my father, at odds with the current version of modern life. Maybe I’ll start harping after Bing Crosby next. I already think people need to shave and get a haircut…pull their trousers up.

The plan then is to increasingly turn to DIY as the autumn rains arrive. Our pampas grass has just grown fluffy bits, as usual in time for the Atlantic winds to blow in from the wet West. There are some more jobs in the garden but soon the bulk growing will slow.

We have to navigate the medical merry-go-round and that is about all on the dance card so to speak. Aside from the blighty trip it is unlikely we will leave our prefecture.

The plan is not overly complicated…

Busy {Probably Unique} Dreaming

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Over the last few weeks I have had a busy time of it on the passive nocturnal dreaming front. I’ll speculate that the content of these dreams is unique. There is no other being on the planet that dreams like me and has dreams like these.

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The dreams which I have written up are:

Investor Incognito – Quantum Modules – Sociopolitical Problems Dream 19-08-2025

Covercule 18 – COVID 19 -“they”- British Expats Dream 15-08-2025

Dreaming Courses (Stanford) Dream – 14-08-2025

Derek Jacobi – Cats – Vance – US Visitors Dream Sequence 13-08-2025

Academic Chemists – Derelict Site – Attack – Honour Dream 11-08-2025

The Somnambulant – Purple Wolf and Crocodiles Dream – 08-08-2025

Novel Conductors – Counts of Penthièvre – Tapestry Dream – 03-08-2025

Coming Home to Roost Dream and Preparation 02-08-2025

Easterly Stalkers – Tarot 12 – Dream – 01-08-2025

“Job” Interview  – IP – Patents Dream 30-07-2025

Candle Vigil – Koyaanisqatsi – Jaguar Shaman – Strange Group Dream 25-07-2025

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Some of these dreams are well in excess of 500 words long and contain subject material with detail which are not your common or garden. My dream recall is adequate and well-practiced.

In one context dreams can provide indications on possibilities in the web of life, apertures which may offer some form of physical plane manifestation. The possibility may be there on the cusp of the dream but physical plane reality renders the probability very low indeed. The dream on dream courses cannot happen now, but at some far time in the future may be possible. I saw the Stanford University quad. In no way could anything I might offer be curriculum acceptable because it cannot be peer reviewed.

The saucepan with IP, patents and quantum in, continues to simmer on a low heat at the back of the stove. Even were an aperture to persist for more than a nanosecond it would take a very risky gambler to touch me with even the longest of barge poles.

These dreams currently show little or no sign of coalescing into any kind of even a nebulous reality.

The wife’s dreams have indicated that we may be due a change in awareness incoming on a non-specified timescale. Noted…

Strangely the most likely thing to change things would be a lottery win!!

The probable life trajectory remains quietly heading towards autumn and the pencilled in date for operation. This followed by recovery and a further operation late spring ’26. In the meantime we have a short visit to the UK planned to see how we feel being there. Strangely it is about cafe Nero, Waitrose and Sainsbury. It will advise us on the blighty or not question. We need to renew our immigrant status early next year. We could get refused and booted out. We cannot assume that we are allowed to stay, though it may be likely we are. We can’t yet claim refugee status or asylum.

Whatever may or may not be going on externally is in many senses another world. I do not foresee it impinging directly here. I could be wrong.

I await to see if the dreaming offers any indication of residual fate, of things I need to do before I die. In the past there have been big gaps in dreaming. When I had bowel cancer I was dream free for a year.

So far this year I have had 60 dreams written up which extrapolates to 90 by the end of  the year.

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This is roughly on trend for the dreams in Brittany graph. I wrote up 84 dreams in 2024. The dream length has seemed to increase as has the detail in the content. No alcohol since early February does not seem to have changed the dreaming pattern.

We shall see…

Is it Safe to Write off Dreams?

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There may be times when we wake up from a nightmare or grimacing with embarrassment from the contents of a dream and in coming to think, “phew, thank God, it was only a dream!!” Yet in the twilight between sleep and “awake” it takes a little while to convince ourselves fully. The dream residue hangs around as we perhaps take breakfast and if we are so inclined, a morning shower. The mind set “it was only a dream” is partially convincing for some and complete for others. The dream echo may last until we get on the Metro train of a morning.

But the funny thing is, you can never un-have a dream. Whether you like it or not the dream has changed you, your consciousness and assimilation of the world. That change may be tiny; it may be huge. But a tiny change, a tiny acorn can become a mighty oak. Things we attempt to sweep under a carpet leave a lump of sorts.

The more rational we imagine ourselves to be the more likely it is that we use the “it was only a dream” explanation and justification. Dreams are for space cadets and rainbow unicorn jockeys after all. They are not real; they have no bearing on waking reality. Bah! Humbug!! In our enlightened AI social media obsessed age dreams have no real place. You can’t make a TikTok out of a dream. You can take a video at Santorini.

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Of course if you are prone to recurring nightmares, they can be tricky to write off with the “it was only a dream” mantra. You may even get stressed about going to bed in case your nightmare returns. Depending upon your point of view, a nightmare means that there is something you need to address in life. It could be a PTSD minefield etched into you being or some other life circumstance than needs attention. Something you are perhaps unwilling to face, to the extent you have nightmares about it.

If you are lucky your dreams may offer you guidance and insights for life. If you are a know-it-all arrogant person, you may squander these with the “it was only a dream” mantra. Dreams can warn you about traps you are rationalising yourself into, they can offer a left sided view aside your insistent justifications.

But if you are of the “phew, I got away with that” mentality you are very likely to discount and write off any advice given in dreams. You are so cunning and clever.

In general most people have a good idea when the need to address some problem or other in life. They know in their hearts. They may lack courage. Their minds may provide an entire Excel spreadsheet of excuses why they do not have to face whatever it is. So they will put it off and put it off and put it off. They may, in this manner, precipitate a crisis of considerable magnitude. They may hope that they never need to face “it” and pray for the fairy Godmother. They may indulge in magical thinking.

I have no idea what you might be dreaming. You could be dreaming a dream in which I am.  In that dream there may be some “advice” for you on what to do. For example if you are fated to meet me, then I might be a recurrent theme in your dreams. If you wish to follow that fate as opposed to stymy it then it might be wise to try to engineer a meeting. If you wish to avoid me you could keep doing than and see if I eventually stop appearing in your dreams or nightmares. If I disappear from your dreams, you could conclude that it is safe to write off dreams in which I appear.

The thing about dreams and dreaming is that there are rarely binary. Dreams are nuanced and partially ephemeral.

I have had hundreds of dreams. Some of which I have been able to act upon meanigfully. There are many for which I am in no position to do anything about. All I can do is note them. I never discount them, but I can’t do anything. It is not my call, my play.

If your dreamer wants to get through to you and you discount what it presents in dreams, it can start to offer omens and dreaming symbols in real life. If for example you have a car crash in real life, then your state of awareness your assimilation of the world and its circumstances needs to and will have an abrupt halt, a forced change of direction. This is a waking dream.

Of course you could ignore it and use the “it was only a dream” mantra and deny your hand in whatever happenstance has occurred.

Did you know that the reason ostriches stick their head in the sand is to better help them to dream?

From my point of view it is generally unwise to chant the “it was only a dream” mantra. Some dreams are relatively safe not to devote too much attention to; others require immediate consideration and action.

Recurring dreams are a subset of dreams that must not be ignored.