Journal 2021-10-12

Skills and knowledge can now be learnt at any point in life because the resources are openly accessible. What is truly valuable is a learning that inspires the imagination to create rather than repeat.

Random Thoughts:

Artists observe. Intense feelings of empathy are welcome but lead only to misery if overwhelming.

I don’t think life is about the number of points scored, or marks totalled on both sides of a ledger.

Reliving memories of things going wrong can cause worry when presented with a similar situation. It is better to have learned, so the replay isn’t necessary.

Journal 2021-10-11

Why do answerers never say why “that’s a great question” is so great? I also would like to know why other questions aren’t that marvellous, with details of the grade achieved, percentile scored, and marks out of ten for effort ;)

Journal 2021-10-10

Sunday is my favourite day of the week, but I wouldn’t want every day to be Sunday.

Saturday is when I can work a full day on what interests me most. I plan no work on a Sunday, but ironically this can be my most productive day because it’s usually when the best thoughts and feelings occur.

Random Thoughts:

Less than one workout per week generally sees a deterioration in fitness or strength. Once a week is the minimum to maintain athleticism in the short-term; twice has marginal improvements; three to four times sees consistent gains; more than four has diminishing benefits.

In One Billion Years

Humans came along for the ride at the halfway point between life beginning on earth, about 4 billion years ago, and life ending in another 4 billion years, with the melting of the planet’s surface under an intensifying sun. Science fiction and other human projections are typically set in the myopic near future of at most a few thousand years – well how about an amount that is actually noticeable in the life of earth, say in one billion years?

Links

I’m at ReallyBobster on the main platforms. The complete list of my links is here: Links

Journal 2021-10-07

Sonnet 18 sounds great when repeated in a vocal melody with Pachelbel's Canon in D Major.

Random Thoughts:

It is more fulfilling to create than consume.

Journal 2021-10-01

Tip: The French in particular love it if, when visiting their country, you speak English at them and expect to be understood. Try also repeating yourself more slowly and loudly, as they might not have heard the first time.

Random Thoughts:

Add depth to 2D habits.

Who you choose to spend your time with is the most important decision you can make.

Getting what you want can be the worst thing ever to happen to you. Not getting what you want can be the best thing ever to happen to you. And vice versa.

Journal 2021-09-30

I could perform my music, poems and monologues on open mics – and film it if I want to. Sounds good to me, as live audiences always lift up the energy.

Random Thoughts:

Powering down before the upload completes would be a pity.

Journal 2021-09-26

Books, pen, pencil, paintings, guitar, piano, tea, coffee, flowers, trees, animals, peace, love.

Writing 50 threads within a theme, each comprising 1,000 words.

Random Thoughts:

The tender beauty in your eyes is my breathing.

Experienced reality is an interpretation of the senses.

Acting is imagination.

Journal 2021-09-25

I really should be doing ALBOD on camera. So far though, better something than nothing. 

Random Thoughts:

An over-focus on moving parts blurs the emergent meaning.

Cruelty, callousness, delusion, suffering. Love, kindness, truth, joy.

Increase leverage by delegation. Delegate to someone who is better at the task than you.

Podcast #10: Episode 2

POEMS

BY ROBERT WALKER

A Little Bit of Drama

DAWN
Dead shadows dance in the night
yearning for the dawn.
Cold and forgotten walking scars,
drained by decay,
wasted by time,
stretch out,
hungered and blurred,
to a spark ignited,
climbing,
rising from the ground.
From the last depths,
rays of hope entwine in the sky,
kissing the hills;
breathing new life
and wonders layered in light.
Naked with joy, a new day, a new world is born.

THE OUTER VIEW
Beneath a mountain of tedium,
In a dull ugly system,
In an empty ocean of shadows,
Is a silhouette of pure fire heat
Drifting in the dark.
All I wanted was the wind;
The wind murmured with anticipation,
The grass turned to icy grey,
A fine mist fell,
And with the mist came my sorrow
Cooling my body
With her thousand kisses,
Leaving me there.
I am surrounded by ice crystals
floating down through silence
into soft glowing snow.
The only sound is the pulse of my breathing.
As the sun sleeps,
how many hearts are dreaming,
when the world stands still.

Podcast #9: The Outer View

THE OUTER VIEW

BY ROBERT WALKER

A Little Bit of Drama

Beneath a mountain of tedium,
In a dull ugly system,
In an empty ocean of shadows,
Is a silhouette of pure fire heat
Drifting in the dark.
All I wanted was the wind;
The wind murmured with anticipation,
The grass turned to icy grey,
A fine mist fell,
And with the mist came my sorrow
Cooling my body
With her thousand kisses,
Leaving me there.
I am surrounded by ice crystals
floating down through silence
into soft glowing snow.
The only sound is the pulse of my breathing.
As the sun sleeps,
how many hearts are dreaming,
when the world stands still.

Journal 2021-09-24

Parliament has a hilarious Gallery of the Grotesque, where British politicians have their oil painting portraits commissioned from grateful public funds. They look so masterfully earnest. Much advised if you fancy a laugh.

Random Thoughts:

I tend to pick and choose between “American” English and ‘British’ English, defaulting to the familiar unless the American version is clearly “better”.

If I am a robot then I am exquisite. This robot is rewriting the program, which was the point in the first place.

Sexiness sells the cornflakes.

Businesses refer to units sold. Businesses tap market trends. Businesses sell identity. But when the smoke clears and the mirrors fall, only what is real remains.

Process of Improvement

In track athletics, runners do not improve by running all the time; in fact if they overtrain, the body does not have time to adapt to the training load and performances start to plateau, then deteriorate. Cross-training in related disciplines is a way to keep the training fresh, to exercise available cardio systems while mainly resting the tired muscles – introducing vivifying new stimuli to which the body can positively respond.

Content

This is a template outline for the areas in which I hope to contribute content over the coming decades. Everything is at robertwalker.blog, but I’ve added external links below.

It may not be practical to stretch myself thinly, but really, I see all the activities as complimentary points of interest in the same panorama.

Songwriting:

Playlist – YouTube

Singing:

Playlist – YouTube

Playlist – SoundCloud

Artworks:

Board – Pinterest

Acting:

Podcast – Anchor

Writing:

Blog – Blogspot

Screenplays – Scribd

Lyrics – YouTube

Poems, short stories, books – in progress…

Stand-up:

Comedy – planned…

Film/video:

Playlist – YouTube

Apps:

Accounting – Wibamu

Trading tools – MetaTrader

Trading system – Vimeo

Games:

Board games – Vimeo

Images:

Google Maps – Google

Board – Pinterest

Curated Playlists:

Playlist – Apple Music

Playlist – YouTube

Podcast #8

“TO BE, OR NOT TO BE”

– HAMLET IN HAMLET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ACT 3, SCENE 1)

A Little Bit of Drama

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Journal 2021-09-18

I’m sitting here under an old oak true, on a bright September afternoon, with my phone at the ready, having told myself to record literally anything that pops into my head. Well the first thought that jumps to the top of the queue isn’t particularly interesting, but here goes…

It is quite an old joke that “it’s er” can sound like “sir” when introducing oneself. So I remember going to some event where I had to sign in at the front desk; I introduced myself as “it’s”, then as the man behind the desk was picking up his pen, I offered the dreaded “er”, before finally saying my name. He had a moment of sardonic glee, then sneered: “Sir Robert Walker, is it?”

I said “not yet” and the man next to him, who had been intently looking down, broke into a laugh - it must have been how I said it rather than what I said. The first man actually grimaced and grumbled to himself, as if annoyed by my response. My interpretation walking away was that he was expecting people to be nervous and this was his welcome, from a raised chair behind a desk within an institution.

I’m thinking of this now more as an observation of how some people engage in this world trying to subdue others. The man would have been a lot happier if he was interested in helping rather than hindering the people he met.

Rhythm and Words

When bobbing along in iambic pentameter, with perfect metre and pace, 1000 lines of Shakespeare is about 1 hour – or all night when fulfilling the words and their meaning.

Journal 2021-09-14

Had an entertaining dream last night about Robert De Nero, Al Pacino and Michael Douglas as The Three Stooges, in a hospital drama, with the running catchphrase: “quick, look like normal people!”. Woke up laughing.

Journal 2021-09-12

I’ve only had the phrase “do you know who I am” said to me once – I couldn’t resist saying “nope” and didn’t work there much longer. Another time, some “head of” something or other in a bank went red with frustration, muttering indignantly about “no respect”. And I still remember the look of stunned shock by an interviewer when I stood up in the middle of an interview and walked out. But the truth is, I was engaging in the same nonsense as they were.