Tag: life

Can a Jaguar Changes Its Spots?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

People can have very fixated images and perceptions of others. They may shoe-horn others into well out of date perceptions. How they remember them can be stuck in a time warp.

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We are watching a TV programme with Eddy Redmayne acting as The Jackal. Even though he is not the same actor, I keep wondering where Wellard or Well Hard the dog is. At the moment in the series  highly armed MI6 agents have just been engaged in a  massive shoot out near Budapest. The sort of thing that is likely to be an international incident but which serves for dramatic purpose.

Not everything makes sense.

It is very easy to get typecast in the eyes of others. There could be a wildly inaccurate narrative circulating which sticks like glue. Once a visiting Japanese postdoc. famous for his drinking prowess back home decided that he wanted to out-drink me competitively because he had heard my legend. We started drinking after I had already had six pints of Stella unbeknownst and unrevealed to him. I stopped drinking a bit before him and he claimed victory. So there may be a story back in Japan of how he beat a champion drinker in the UK. Not all stories are true but it does not stop their circulation.

People can have their perception locked, very locked.

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Many are not a lot like they once were. Some people change. It is said that the warrior’s path is one of transmutation,  transformation and transfiguration. This suggests that the change may be more radical than a cosmetic tinkering.

I’ll wager were I to meet people I was acquainted with two decades ago they would initially interact with me using that out of date context, if they even remembered me at all. There is and was a whole side of me of which most were completely unaware. One student thanked me for my 9 AM winter morning lectures because they gave them a chance to catch up on their sleep in a nice warm lecture theatre. Others have told me that they doubted that boring dead-pan me could be any use to them when they were unwell. After half an hour of quiet chat they were off to see the GP for a mental health consultation and had provisionally booked a session with the on campus councillor.

Few would imagine that I have had dreams of shaman and Jaguars.

Jaguar Dream Link

People struggle to a) notice and b) fully accept change in others, particularly those who they think they know well. Radical change is considered impossible. After all a leopard cannot change its spots.

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

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Last night in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness, in the cusp between here and yet to come, I had yet another coming home to roost “slide show”. In that, things come home to roost for some people whom I once had acquaintance of. I take no joy or glee from these happenstances, these scenarios, rather a tinge of sadness at folly and adamant folly to boot. For example if you falsify any official document there is a chance down the line that it could come back to bite you on the arse like a rabid chihuahua. If you succumb to temptation and allow the tendrils of evil to find purchase, they rarely let go and your relationship becomes symbiotic. Without knowing it you supply the food. Short of a full blown exorcism it is game over in terms of liberation for this lifetime. Nobody involved in such a symbiosis will ever believe or accept such a statement.

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Everything seems normal to them. Their playbook seems to work and they have success in the world and among peers. They can handle whatever mini-crises are sent to them. Or so they think.

The thing about karma is that it can be subtle. People who believe they are thoroughly entitled do not imagine that it exists. When something happens that is “bad luck” , “unfair” and not an effect which they have had a hand in causing. One day, perhaps in a lifetime to come, people get to have the penny drop whilst incarnated and they see with irrevocable clarity the outcomes and consequences of their actions, their emotionally charged bile and punitive vengeful thoughts. Theory has it there is a review at the time of death too. I witnessed bedside my father struggling with his. It was not pretty.

I have started mentally preparing for my operation and other commitments later in the year. It has become reasonably obvious in the twilight that I need to return to the A-U-M meditations and revisit Phowa practice just in case. I probably need to start doing more stretching exercises and work at building back some muscle in my legs and hips. At the end of the month I start a new birth-year, leading me further into my final pinnacle. Who knows what is in store aside from some hippie action in the operating block.

My understanding is that when people incarnate, they choose all the circumstances of their birth to enable them to learn from a “lesson plan” that might help them best evolve and work at karma. They made this plan themselves. For example I was born into a family in which the education mantra was strong. I was sent to boarding school in another country, education was more important than any close familial relationship. I subsequently ended up working  in “education” for a couple of decades. I planned this before birth.

In the birth lesson plan trajectories of whom you are “meant” to meet are bullet pointed. The possibilities exist. These individuals have the wherewithal through which you might learn. Human choice must be allowed. Thus it is possible to completely screw up the lesson plan which you yourself wrote. Literally miss the boat by miles. You can fuck up a life and badly so, through your own arrogance. The moot point is were you always destined to fuck up or did you simply act that way out of bloody-mindedness? Did you cut off your nose to spite your face or had you zero choice in the matter? In the grand scheme of things learning will inevitably ensue. But it may be many lifetimes later that such a great learning opportunity re-presents. People learn painfully yet effectively through loss.

It is the karma of snakes and ladders.

The thing about dreaming is that timing is never atomic-clock accurate. But when the dreams increase in frequency it does mean that the event is getting nearer in time, it will happen sooner. It also means that the likelihood or probability is increasing.

Dreaming by its very nature cannot be an exact science….

The Introvert Switch Off

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It is not uncommon for an introvert to remain silent when someone is talking AT them. They can wait until the other person stops talking eyeing the door just to get out of there. They have long since stopped listening to and processing whatever the other person is saying. All they hear is “blah, blah, blah” all they think is “how can I get out of here.” Very often the person with verbal diarrhoea may be completely unaware of the introvert switch off. They may even interpret the lack of argument as agreement and support. The person they are talking at has completely disengaged. The person talking may even imagine that they have had a good chat and an exchange of ideas. The introvert is looking to get the hell out of there and will probably avoid any future contact unless they absolutely have to. There has been a huge miscommunication.

On “First Dates” last night there was a classic example of introvert switch off and complete disengagement in a 1:1 dating scenario. People have got to seriously lack self-awareness and any hint of empathy to/for others if they fail to see an obvious switch off. They may continue to rabbit. They may be lost in their own little world, oblivious.

There may be social elements too. It seems to me that people like to discuss things in France. Some kind of discussion is anticipated and expected. I do not often need any form of discussion to come to my own conclusions or ideas. I tend to research. People used to discussion may anticipate someone talking over them in disagreement, which in my book is rude. They may expect an ebb and flow of conversation. When there is none, it can confuse.  In my case if I want to understand spoken French I have to concentrate. If for example the wife and I are talking with someone and they start to speak to the wife. I switch off because it is not for me, I do not have to engage with whatever it is that is being said. People may be unaware assuming that I am still participating in conversation when I have already opted out. They may assume they are talking with both of us, I have switched off.

I have recall of a large number of conversations mostly in English when someone has said something which is wrong and which I disagree with. I have not felt the urge to verbalise. There has been no “push back “ from me. I have no idea what the other person has made of it. It is not my problem. I have a few anecdotes when some have reported me saying something when I have said nothing. The mind can do weird things. The lack of negation may have been seen as affirmation. It wasn’t. I was bored and disengaged. I was hoping for the “conversation” to finish quickly.

I suspect that there are a quite a few introverts out there who recognise some of the above. There may be quite a few extroverts who are completely unaware of the introvert switch off. After all the sound of their voice is magnificent and the world benefits enormously from their erudite opining.

Future Plans – Pre-op Chore List

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Assuming that the frequency of hospital appointments remains reduced we can start planning for the future. So far there is no “show stopper” for the pencilled in total hip replacement surgery in late autumn. There are two major appointments for which we do not yet have dates: a pre-op anaesthesia assessment and a CT cardio-angiogram. The latter is due.

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The cardiologist suggested that this would probably be ok, but nobody has imaged me thus, yet. Given they operate on frail old nannas I should be good to go. But it may advise on my increased risk. I also need a full dental 360 degree check.

It seems a long way off but when you have a big garden, scale can eat time. I have to think about doing the heavy donkey work before the operation because I will be very incapacitated for 6 weeks or so, through Christmas. No driving for me…We live alone and have to hope that the wife’s health holds. If that starts to fail we are in deep shit.

I am not a fan of last minute dot com.

Chores:

  1. Sewerage check – lift the inspection covers and use plumber’s rods to clear the 30 metres to the cess pit. Should last 3-6 months.
  2. Wood – we need to order some oven dried wood. There is probably about 1 tonne of wood left over to be sorted and sized. I may need to split the pine left over from Tempest Ciaran. Perhaps another tonne or so. I will need to break and clear two wooden pallets. These can be sized for kindling. Two palettes is about 3 months. They may need to be cut to fire-stick ready size. Perhaps I need a new splitting axe.
  3. I need to move some more earth to shore up the side of the pond which has a slow leak. A couple of loads of 250kg of dirt should help it cope with the full pond. The pond always fills to overflow with the autumn rain.
  4. Need to clean and power wash the external hallway. The swallows who nested there will head off for Africa and leave the guano behind.
  5. We need to secure someone to help out in the gardening. The maintenance pruning needs to be put on hold
  6. The pink rambler rose at 2 metres  high needs dead heading.
  7. I have strimming and mole trapping to be done. There will be one or two full property boundary strims to do at 8000 metres squared that is a bit of strimming frenzy.

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  • Indoors we need to sugar soap wash the room near the wood oven. This will provoke painting of much of the downstairs. That is a big job.
  • The downstairs floor needs to be solvent cleaned with acetone to remove dirt accumulation from excess glue. I will need to use my favourite product Mr Propre floor cleaner with a mop.
  • The upstairs kitchen needs to be floored. It is the only remaining room which we have not done already. We have floored in excess of 200 square metres.
  • It may need a lick of paint too.
  • The repaired volet boxes need cleaned and filled, painted to bring back up to standard.
  • There is one room with loose wallpaper which needs removed and new paper perhaps glued in place.

We need to figure out if I need a downstairs hospital bed. The spiral staircase looks to be a bit tricky. The loo and shower are already disabled enabled downstairs.

Do we need a bigger freezer and for me to prepare spicey foods?

Knowing the way things work here I will need a yellow bio-hazard sharps box for the used anti-coagulant syringes, which I will be self-darting.

This seems to be what the next few months looks like heading into year end.

That is probably the scope of it…

I can already use a Zimmer frame and peg about on crutches.

Where can I get a black eye patch and a parrot?

Best Ever Dream – Dancing With Ganesh Dream 20-9-19

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Still a bit shaky. I have just woken from my afternoon nap, which usually results from my midday codeine. It is a few weeks after I broke the head of my femur and had it repaired with a Titanium nail. I was taken to A&E in an ambulance. I am using a Zimmer frame and have a hospital bed downstairs.

Wow! That was the most intense dream I have ever had.

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I arrive at the edge of a walled garden and am welcomed through a large gateway by an upright Ganesh. He has all the typical elephant features, but his gait is that of a human being. He is iridescent blue in colour and has a twinkle in his eyes. I am welcomed into his “humble abode”. He shows me around his palace gardens, gardens that are tropical and scented. There are flowers everywhere. The garden is filled with water features. He takes me to a partially covered courtyard which has red-brown gravel. The pieces of gravel are near perfect spheres. He sits me down and we take tea together brought by his servants. I understand that this courtyard is where he practises his dancing.

A group of Indian musicians file in and seat themselves on the ground. Ganesh signals to them and they start playing. He gets up and starts to dance. His movements are exquisite, and his hands alternate between mudras beautifully and each mudra is exact and precise. He beckons me and starts to teach me some steps of his dance. {In the dream my leg functions fine.} Slowly I get the steps and we are starting to whirl and circle. It is entrancing. He stops suddenly and takes a blue-metallic AUM symbol out of his tunic. He walks over to me and presses it on my Anja centre. Slowly it penetrates and dissolves into me. I am left with a tattoo like impression on my skin. Ganesh smiles radiantly and we continue to dance.

I look at my body and notice that it has somehow taken on the same hue as Ganesh, which pleases me greatly in the dream. He laughs, at my surprise.

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I awake with a start and my first instinct is look at my arms. They are not blue. They are lightly tanned and freckled with a few bruises from all the needles. It takes a while to assemble the reality of the room. I get up and go outside to smoke.

Challenges – Genetics – Having to Endure – Lama Dorje

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A working hypothesis I have is that because I do not strut about, talk a lot and generally bullshit, people feel that I am need of education by them. Somehow, they are kind enough to bestow the benefit of their grandiose and unsolicited opinion on me so that I, a mere lowly pleb, might learn from their magnificence. So many offer me their opinions. Obviously, I am in dire need of education.

It is a catch 22. Do you let them rabbit on {endlessly} or flash intellect and make them feel more insecure than they already are. I don’t have an answer. Neither works well.

You may infer from the above that I am an arrogant arsehole. Your reflection in the mirror which is me may not reveal my essence.

Given all the tests in a medical sense that I am having its sounds a bit like someone meandering around in search of some kind of elusive diagnosis of sorts. That could be the case. Or it could simply be the generosity of the French healthcare system in action. The tendency for prophylaxis here is higher than in the UK.

The “health” finger continues to point at genetics. There is a non-normal make up, perhaps. Maybe I am special, so fucking special, or a creep, or a weirdo.

In my extensive recapitulations there is a recurring theme, “having to endure”. I have had to endure all sorts of things starting with bullying at school(s) and being gossiped about extensively, especially when my back was turned and I was not there. I am not paranoid; I have anecdotal evidence in support of this tendency. People curry favour by gossiping and in the past, they have claimed power by association to me. Those days are long gone.

I have an inkling that the current health drama belongs to the subset of “having to endure” challenges. There is little I can do; I simply have to endure and remain calm.

Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, has a whole chapter on forbearance. Bodhidharma was rumoured to have sat watching a wall for nine years.

Maybe one day instead of enduring I may give both barrels. I doubt many could handle it if I ramped up to 9/10 face to face with them. It would be very intense. Outside of experience.

The other working hypothesis I have is that I am tangentially involved in the drama, schemes and socio-political shenanigans of others. The thing is they are over “there” and I am only truly involved in their illusions. People make shit up; they make a drama out of it and somehow, I am caught up in their imaginations. I am written into their imaginary scripts.

I used to wear black Levi’s 501 jeans for decades. I now wear army surplus combat trousers. This dress makes me look a bit like a pikey prepper. I do not look for one minute like an ex-intellectual or the co-founder of a high technology high power laser company. So people tend, in the first instance, to talk down to me, even worse I do not speak high quality French, God’s only intellectual language. I must therefore be an idiotic stupid moron. They judge a book by their mis-interpretation of the cover. The French are as, if not more, arrogant than the English.

What can you do? Let them rabbit on {endlessly}. There is no point in trying to change their habits or self-opinion.

The wife and I have a joke. If I wore Buddhist robes people would treat me entirely differently. If they saw me thus attired in their dreams, they would find it weird.

“Alan always wore jeans in life!!”

There is a part of me that might order some robes on line and do a TikTok type experiment. Go in jeans to an estate agent one day and in robes the next…

But that would be fucking about…

Is there some as yet unseen diagnoses?

Or am I simply enduring the Gattling gun fire of multiple medical tests and appointments?

The current bet is towards the latter…

Lifting up – Drone Overview – Colours – Dream 31-05-2025

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Here is this morning’s short dream which replayed a number of times.

The dream starts in a normal city setting in which people are going about their business in a semi-frantic manner. They are rushing about. They are sat at home watching TV, playing computer games and glued to their devices. There is much toing and froing. The colours of life are not vibrant and there is enmity. People are convinced that they are right and living THE life. Like a speeded up Koyaanisqatsi film time lapse, life whizzes by.

I am sat on a small grassy hill nearby. In my hand I have a flying drone controller with which I initially pilot a drone over their life. I turn on the camera and cast the images to their devices. I lift the drone which is white with four silent propellers up out of the scenery to show them the beauty outside of their world. I take control of the drone with my mind and project a world with less enmity and stress. It is relaxed green and pastoral. I show them what they are missing. The colours are bright and vivacious.

The scene starts to replay. As I start to lift the drone out of their normality they set dogs on the drone. The dogs jump and try to catch the drone in their mouths. They are egged on by their owners. Who do not want to see. They, the owners, have high animosity towards me because I am trying to show them another, higher, wider perspective on their lives. No matter how hard the dogs try they cannot catch the drone and I continue to cast “higher” to their devices. I am not in any way thanked for my efforts.

The dream ends after several repeats.

Clearly, I Am the Problem – Neurodivergence

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Over the years I have encountered many reactive and defensive behaviours in my interactions with people, mostly men. It seems to me that I do not do the ritual arse sniffing in the way they expect. Nor do I play the laddish itchy back game with enough ego stroking. The worse reactions are from men around 40. By the time they get to 60 they are past most of the BS. I do not piss up the wall of the urinal in the correct manner, apparently.

Clearly, given that I am the only common factor in all this, I am THE problem.

Chris Packham has been doing a TV series on neurodiversity in which he gets people who are diagnosed with various syndromes to do a short film to portray their experiences to their nearest and dearest. Most of the “weirdos” seem interesting to me and fairly high functioning. They are not boring.

The gist is that many feel/felt stress trying to fit and comply with the harsh societal expectations.

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No matter how hard they tried they did not fit well and the “diagnoses” gave them a handy explanation for why. It brought relief and sense-making.

My own experience working with the diagnosed is that the worse thing “normal” people can express towards them is impatience and huff. If people are impatient, it causes fear and upset. It leads to internalisation and makes any attempt at expression far worse and more dreaded. Impatience could be said to be an enemy of neurodiverse inclusion. Impatience is the start of a far from virtuous circle.

“You should not be like that. It ought to be easy. Huff!!”

This is the foundation stone of cruelty directed at the different and the stick used to marginalise them. May be they/we are not the problem. Maybe it is the self-righteous and self-important “normal” people. These people who are highly impatient and immediacy fixated.

I know by experimental measurement that I am not neurotypical. I have measured my brain waves using a fast Fourier transform electroencephalograph. Mine differ in that there is way lower neuronal activity which I can also further silence.

It would be impossible to convey my state of mind in a film. Because “normal” people cannot handle neuro-silence and their internal dialogue would start to chatter. If you cannot be quiet mentally you simply cannot get it.

Felix, the stray cat, is unwell. We think we are in the palliative care regime. When I go to feed him and Gandalf, he gets under my feet and rubs himself against my legs. I have to pick him up gently with my foot and “throw” him out of the way. He thinks this is an ace game. Because of my arthritis I am not steady on my legs and stopping and starting is difficult. One day I may stand on him in a painful way.

There is no way that I can explain to Felix that if he is hungry the best thing to do is to get out of my way. Food would arrive quicker and with no less certainty.

It is very difficult to convey how and in what way one might differ. It has to be experienced personally to be fully grasped. All the rest is extrapolation or intellectualisation.

Upcoming I am going to be looking to have my hips surgically replaced. Already I am thinking about how I might behave so as not to get a strange reaction from the surgeon. I will not fit his mental models and there will be a disconnect. Yet I have need of surgery.

How much will I have to act and conceal and hide so as not to be THE problem?

How much will I have to reel myself in?