Its going to be a long hot summer

Helloooooooo Summer my old friend !

Well…surprise surprise….I’m back. I really didn’t realize that so many months had passed. I guess like all habits the moment you break them for longer than a few weeks they really disappear, and it takes a concerted effort to restart them.

For me as summer looms large so does the threat of overheating and losing mobility and coordination, an old but familiar grumble but with the rain we have had lately I have realized it’s the humidity that plays a part too.

My good intention to run an eco- friendly water curtain air cooler has just increased the humidity which….also starts to challenge the connections. Just like the quest to find an Exo planet where we can recolonize our species , not too hot , not too cold …I too am searching for said Goldilocks Land 😊 albeit right here on good old planet Earth…( do I hear the distant tunes of Duran Duran…no , pug barking ….)

With the warmer weather there has been a flurry of activity outside , not just the wild flowers and weeds but also the birdlife, I have never before seen such a plethora of species…of course I do have my favorites and my not so favorites ( Yes , magpies may be cute but they are savage….)

And yes my favorite bird apart from owls are woodpeckers and I was overjoyed to have them visit the office (especially as I was fiddling with my camera at the time …NOT like Slappy !

A highlight for me this week was a surprise visit by Slappy or perhaps Son of Slappy…who came tearing around the corner doing some impressive parkour moves before disappearing across the yard.

All I had was my mobile phone so at least I have proof he/she was there 😊

I’ve been reading a lot of fiction lately, I am confident I could become a serial murderer and escape all the DNA traces AND represent myself in court,JOKE !!!!!! (between the hours and hours of cosmology podcasts ) so my Seth references have been non-existent , until this nugget popped up.

Identity and ideas

We rarely do or say something intentionally that surprises us. That’s because we are in intimate contact with the noise in our heads–we spend our days looking in the mirror, listening to our inner voice and defining our point of view. “That’s not the sort of thing I would say or do…”

We call this internal familiarity our ‘identity.’ If it gets lost (when someone joins a cult, for example), it’s noteworthy and can be tragic.

If our ideas are equated to our identity, then talking about ideas is very much the act of talking about yourself.

And thus the tension is created. Our culture and our economy are built on ideas. Many of our society’s ideas get better over time (you don’t go to the barber for bloodletting any longer–it’s what probably killed George Washington) and yet some of them get stuck. Often, we need a generation to step away before an entrenched idea begins to fade, because the people who have been embracing that toxic or outlived idea see it as part of their identity.

As the media realizes that they can improve profits by narrowcasting ideas to people who embrace them as part of who they are, it gets increasingly difficult to have a constructive conversation about many ideas–because while people are able and sometimes eager to change some of their less personal ideas, we rarely seek to change our identity.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle and a piece you thought fit in a spot where it doesn’t actually fit, that missed fit is viewed as useful information. Go ahead and try the piece in a different spot–that’s not a threat to your identity as a puzzle solver. In fact, your identity as a puzzle solver is tied up in the idea that if the evidence shows a piece didn’t fit, you simply try a new spot, you don’t feel threatened or disrespected.

The most successful problem solvers are people who have embraced this simple method–your current idea isn’t your identity, it’s simply a step closer to a solution to the problem in front of you.

One way to define our identity is to fall in love with an idea (often one that was handed to us by a chosen authority).

Another is to refuse to believe our identity is embodied in an idea, and instead embrace a method for continually finding and improving our ideas.

Don’t stop believing !! (Thank you Boston)

Which reminds me …where is the music slot….with all the football malarkey and Covid vaccination hoo-haa and hubabub (Yes I am successfully double vaccinated and can prove it…) there has been little time for my music addiction , well not exactly true …after midnight there seems to be time ( since we haven’t had clear skies to watch planets for….almost a year now !!!!!!)

Of course as we leave Pride month it would be quite ok not to pitch a good set !

Thank you Franco !

With that all said and done the days have been filled with birdsong and trying to stop the rain from washing away my garden !

I heard today we have had the wettest June in almost 10 years ! Just as well my sun shades are easily disconnected to avoid being swamped !!!!

Looking forward to what is being predicted as a long hot dry summer …I will take refuge indoors fuelled by espresso and tunes !

Happy Summer !